CECOAL   02625
CENTRO DE ECOLOGIA APLICADA DEL LITORAL
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Land-use change and direct threats as drivers of jaguar and puma habitat loss in the Gran Chaco
Autor/es:
ROMERO-MUÑOZ ALFREDO; DECARRE JULIETA; NOSS ANDREW; KUEMMERLE TOBIAS; CAMINO MICAELA; GÓMEZ BIBIANA; TORRES RICARDO; BAUMANN MATHIAS; GIORDANO ANTHONY; THOMPSON JEFFREY
Lugar:
Cartagena
Reunión:
Congreso; International Congress of Conservation Biology; 2017
Institución organizadora:
Society for Conservation Biology
Resumen:
Large predators are threatened across the globe due to a combination of habitat loss, caused primarily by land-use change, and direct elimination, often in response to human-wildlife conflicts. The spatial interactions of both threats are little understood, but likely involve large synergistic negative effects on populations. Here, we evaluated how land-use change and surrogates for direct human persecution have changed in the Gran Chaco ecoregion (1.1 million km²) between 1985 and 2013, and how these changes have affected suitable habitat for jaguar (Panthera onca) and puma (Puma concolor). We collected georeferenced records for both species over the last four decades across the Chaco from Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia. We applied a two-dimensional habitat modelling approach to separate the effects of land-use change and of direct persecution by humans; and to map core, sink, and refuge areas for our target species. We found that the jaguar has experienced the greatest decline of high quality habitat, especially towards the south of its range in the Argentine Chaco, but also in Paraguay where agricultural expansion has boomed recently for cattle ranching. Core habitat shrank to a few patches in the northern Chaco-in southern Bolivia and western Paraguay--and was virtually lost from the entire Argentine Chaco, which now appears to contain only sink habitat. The puma has experienced a more moderate decline, maintaining high quality habitat patches in large areas of the Chaco in all three countries. However, similar to jaguars, pumas have experienced a loss of core habitat and a widespread increase of sink and refuge habitat. The Chaco, a global deforestation hotspot, is a large and unique ecoregion, but our analyses show that it is losing its apex predators rapidly and across large areas due to the expanding threats of land-use change and predator persecution.