CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The maned wolf Chrysocyon brachyurus is the fourth largest canid worldwide and is classified as near threatened by the IUCN. The main objective of this study was to update the existing information on the occurrence of maned wolf in Argentina and to compare the current distribution to that obtained from the period 1988-2008, locating the new records within the Argentinian ecoregions and highlighting those corresponding to threatened maned wolves. A database of new records of maned wolves was created and a grid of presence/absence was generated at a spatial resolution of 0.5 degrees (~50km). A total of 1051 records of C. brachyurus were obtained between 2008 and 2021, and we also showed locations for the period 1988-2008 not previously reported. The calculated area of occupancy (AOO) was 500,000 km2. Most of the areas with new records of the maned wolf were on the margins of its previously reported distribution in the Chaco Seco, Espinal and Pampas ecoregions. Although our results show an AOO 61.29% higher than calculated from the period 1988-2008, the location and frequency of reported hazards and the intense environmental transformation that characterizes the novel areas suggest counterintuitive implications for the conservation of the species due to increased human-wildlife conflicts. Our study reveals the need for systematic research to improve the understanding of the ecological processes that may affect the species in the region and constitutes a key tool to guide conservation strategies for the maned wolf in Argentina.Orozco, M., Caruso, N., Natalini, M., Iaconis, K., Tittarelli, M., Juarez, C., . . . Soler, L. (2022). Updating the distribution range of the maned wolf Chrysocyon brachyurus in Argentina. Oryx, 1-4. doi:10.1017/S0030605322001272

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