Priority areas for jaguar Panthera onca conservation in the Cerrado


MARINA P ERE S PORTUGAL,RONALDO GO N ÇALVES MOR A T O KAT I A MARIA PASCHO A LETT O MI CCHI D E B ARRO S F ERRAZ


F LÁVIO HEN RI QUE GUIMA R Ã E S RODRIGUES and CLAUDIA MARIA J AC O B I


Abstract The jaguar Panthera onca, a threatened species in Brazil, is losing suitable habitat as a result of agricultural expansion and other forms of land conversion, especially in the Cerrado biome. In the current context of habitat loss and fragmentation, a network of protected areas is para- mount for the conservation of this species. We aimed to identify jaguar conservation units in the Cerrado, and pro- pose a ranking of priority areas for the species in this region. We used themaximum entropy algorithm to model habitat suitability for the jaguar in the Cerrado, with nine uncorre- lated environmental variables and 106 non-autocorrelated presence-only records.We prioritized regions, using Zonation, and ranked jaguar conservation units according to their area, proximity to strictly protected areas, jaguar presence, and potential for connectivity. Circa 30% of the Cerrado is suitable for the jaguar. The most important variables affect- ing jaguar distribution are mean rainfall and land cover, with a high probability of jaguar presence in forest and savannah. We selected 31 high-priority jaguar conservation units, cover- ing c. 174,825 km2 (8.5%) of the Cerrado.We emphasize the need for new protected areas and the promotion of sustain- able development, as only 0.4% of the Cerrado (8,345 km2) has high environmental suitability for jaguars and ,1%of the area covered by jaguar conservation units falls within pro- tected areas. Most jaguar conservation units identified here are relevant for habitat connectivity in Brazil, given their proximity to other critical areas for jaguar conservation in the Caatinga and the Amazon.


Keywords Brazil, Cerrado, connectivity, jaguar conserva- tion unit, Maxent, Panthera onca, spatial conservation prioritization


Supplementary material for this article is available at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605318000972


Introduction


can lead to local extinctions (Fischer&Lindenmayer, 2007). Top predators, such as large felids, are vulnerable to habitat loss and fragmentation because they require extensive areas to range, and an abundance of large prey (Ripple et al., 2014). Establishing protected areas and maintaining con- nectivity between them are valuable approaches to conserve populations of large carnivores in the long term (Taylor et al., 1993; Ripple et al., 2014). Conservationists and natural resource managers often define conservation areas on the basis of large felids because these species are vulnerable to threats, require large spaces and play important roles as umbrella species and top predators (Grigione et al., 2009). The jaguar Panthera onca once had a broad distribution,


H


from the southern USA to Patagonia, but it now occupies only 51% of its historical range (Quigley et al., 2017). It has large home ranges, with habitats characterized by the pres- ence of water bodies and sufficient prey, and it prefers nat- ural areas with lowanthropogenic disturbance (Vynne et al., 2011; Cullen et al., 2013). These characteristics make it an ex- cellent model species for identifying priority areas for con- servation at a landscape scale (Hatten et al., 2005; Grigione et al., 2009; Rodríguez-Soto et al., 2011;Morato et al., 2014). The jaguar is categorized as Near Threatened on the


MARINA PERES PORTUGAL (Corresponding author, orcid.org/0000-0001-8643-


3947)FLÁVIO HENRIQUE GUIMARÃES RODRIGUES and CLAUDIA MARIA JACOBI Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Av. Pres. Antônio Carlos, 6627, Belo Horizonte, Mato Grosso 31270-901, Brazil. E-mail marinapport@gmail.com


RONALDO GONÇALVES MORATO Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade, Atibaia, Brazil


KATIAMARIA PASCHOALETTOMICCHI DE BARROS FERRAZ Universidade de São Paulo, Piracicaba, Brazil


Received 12 September 2017. Revision requested 5 January 2018. Accepted 16 July 2018. First published online 24 May 2019.


IUCN Red List (Quigley et al., 2017) but in Brazil, where some populations face significant threats, the species is categorized as Vulnerable (Morato et al., 2013). Jaguars are particularly threatened in the Cerrado biome, with an esti- mated population decline of .50% since 1987 (Moraes, 2012; Morato et al., 2013). The major threats to jaguars in the Cerrado are habitat loss, resulting from high rates of conversion of natural vegetation for pastures and agricul- ture, prey depletion, and hunting (Moraes, 2012; Morato et al., 2013; Strassburg et al., 2017). The Cerrado has already lost 46% of its native vegetation (Strassburg et al., 2017) but ,3% of its area is protected against land-cover change (MMA, 2016). This situation threatens the survival not only of the jaguar population but also the c. 4,800 plant and vertebrate species of the biome, many of which are endemic to this biodiversity hotspot (Strassburg et al., 2017). Several studies have proposed jaguar conservation units, identifying important areas for jaguars across their


Oryx, 2020, 54(6), 854–865 © 2019 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605318000972


abitat loss and fragmentation are major threats to bio- diversity, as they affect species’ ability to disperse and


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