CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Visualizing the distribution or ecological characteristics of rare or threatened species is necessary for effective implementation of conservation initiatives. The giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) belongs to the order Xenathra andinhabits the neotropical regions of Central and South America. In Argentina and the world it is considered as Vulnerable species, and it has been extinguished in some regions of their distribution. In Corrientes province, northeast Argentina, giant anteaters has disappeared in the last century, and a recentrestoration project is trying to return a population to its natural habitat through reintroduction. The habitat selection by the first reintroduced giant anteater population was studied in the Iberá Nature Reserve of NE Argentina, an area dominated by marshes, grasslands, savannahs and patches of forests, inlands restricted to or under cattle management. Each habitat differs in canopy cover and other vegetation characteristics that allowed us to create defined polygons of each habitat. Eighteen animals were released and radio-tracked between 2007 and 2012 for periods of 6?46 months, producing 1181 locations. To assess habitat selection Resource Selection Functions were used at two spatial scales using as covariates affecting selection Habitat type: Grassland, Open Savannah, Closed Savannah and Hygrophilous Forest; Distance to Forest Edge (DFE) and Distance to a Main Road (DMR). We used the RSF models to generate maps of the relative probability of occurrence of giant anteaters with (1) poor, (2) low, (3) moderate, (4) good and (5) high probability of occurrence. Therewas a high positive selection towards lands without cattle. No important differences were found between scales among RSF models. Models including Habitat type and DFE yielded better fit. The DMR did not affect habitat selection. Eventhough

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