Refined assessment of the geographic distribution of Geoffroy's cat ( Leopardus geoffroyi ) (Mammalia: Felidae) in the Neotropics

CUYCKENS, G. A. E.; PEREIRA, J. A.; TRIGO, T. C.; DA SILVA, M.; GONÇALVES, L.; HUARANCA, J. C.; BOU PÉREZ, N.; CARTES, J. L.; EIZIRIK, E.

JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY (1987)

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Año: 2016 vol. 298 p. 285 - 292

0952-8369

Understanding the fine-scale geographic distribution of a species has applications inbiogeography, ecology, evolution and conservation. Species distribution models(SDM) have been widely used to predict geographic and climatic ranges of species.Geoffroy?s cat Leopardus geoffroyi is a small felid of least concern that occupies awide variety of habitat types in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay andUruguay. We evaluated the fine-scale distribution of Geoffroy?s cat at the sub-continentallevel, estimated its current extent and area of occurrence and discussed thecurrent and potential ranges developed with SDM. On the basis of species occurrences(n = 1502) and large-scale environmental data, two model types (?environmental?and ?land cover?) were developed using MaxEnt. The estimated extent ofoccurrence of Geoffroy?s cat was 3 180 664 km2, but the potential area of occurrencepredicted by our environmental model was 70% larger due to areas with highsuitability (i.e. >0.5) compared to the species? current range. The most importantbioclimatic factors affecting Geoffroy?s cat presence were temperature seasonality,mean temperature of the coldest quarter and annual precipitation. Two recentrecords obtained outside the known distribution of the species fell within the highsuitabilityarea (i.e. >0.5) predicted by our model. Our SDM suggest that this habitat-generalistfelid is probably expanding its distribution range by taking advantageof changes in human land use.