Distribution and habitat use of the endemic Yungas Guan (Penelope bridgesi) in the Southern Yungas of Argentina

YANINA TEJERINA; BARDAVID, SOFIA; NATALIA POLITI; JAIME, BERNARDOS; ANNA, PIDGEON; RIVERA, LUIS OSVALDO

BIRD CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL

CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS

Lugar: Cambridge; Año: 2022

0959-2709

Identifying the factors that determine the spatial distribution and habitatuse of species of conservation importance is essential to generateeffective conservation and management strategies. Guans play a keyrole in the regeneration of forests in South America as seed dispersers,and are threatened mainly by habitat loss and hunting. The Yungas Guan(Penelope bridgesi) is an endemic species restricted to the SouthernYungas of Argentina and Bolivia that was recently recognized as a fullspecies. To determine the conservation status of Yungas Guan,information on its distribution and habitat use is urgent needed. Theobjectives of our work are 1) to determine the potential distribution ofthe Yungas Guan in the Southern Yungas of Argentina, and 2) assess theinfluence of environmental and anthropogenic covariables on habitat useof the species. We used records of Yungas Guan to model the potentialdistribution of the species with MaxEnt software and used occupancymodels to determine habitat use and elements of the landscape(puestos, urban areas, roads, rivers and elevation) that are influential.We obtained data on the presence of Yungas Guan with camera trapswith an effort of 6,990 camera trap-days. The total potential distributionof the species was 14,071 km2. We found that the habitat use of YungasGuan increased with proximity to rivers and streams. The probability ofhabitat use was 0.27 with a range of 0.02 - 0.42. Of the total potentialdistribution area, 11,156 km2, or 79%, had a probability of habitat usegreater than 0.2. This study is the first in determining the potentialdistribution of Yungas Guan in the Southern Yungas of Salta and Jujuyprovinces in Argentina and highlights the importance of carrying outanalyzes with occupancy models to assess the influence of environmentaland anthropogenic variables and threats for cracid species.