858 M. P. Portugal et al.
We designated all polygons jaguar conservation core areas; i.e. large areas with medium or high environmental suitability for jaguars. We used Zonation (Moilanen, 2007), for spatial conser-
vation prioritization, to define jaguar conservation units within each jaguar conservation core area. Zonation re- moves cells of multiple environmental layers interactively and provides a map with the smallest aggregate margi- nal loss of environmental characteristics (Lehtomäki & Moilanen, 2013). We ran Zonation combining the habitat suitability map within jaguar conservation core areas, which we assigned a weight of 1, and areas with natural vegetation (from the land-cover map), which we assigned a weight of zero, using the additive benefit function (Lehtomäki & Moilanen, 2013). We used different weights to avoid select- ing pixels with suitable vegetation but no jaguar occurrence. We used a warp factor of 100, allowing edge removal and distribution smoothing to obtain a more compact solution. From this ranked output we selected the percentage that represented 15% of the Cerrado area (305,905 km2), similar to the current extent of protected areas in the world (Albuquerque & Beier, 2015). We transformed this final zonation raster into polygons
and assessed those.23.5 km2 in area according to the rank- ing of parameters in Table 2, to prioritize jaguar conserva- tion units. We used the area of the jaguar conservation unit and the presence of jaguars, according to the concept of jaguar conservation units established by Sanderson et al. (2002). We added the categories proximity to protected areas and potential connectivity, as we aimed to select jaguar conservation units that would connect to other patches. The potential for connectivity is based on the probability of con- nectivity index, which examines an attribute of the patch (mean habitat suitability value, in this case) and the max- imum product probability of all paths between a pair of patches, calculated using Conefor 2.6 (Saura & Torné, 2009). This probability was based on the mean dispersal distance (0.5 probability), calculated as 113 km according to the for- mula 17 ×√home range (Bowman et al., 2002).Weassumed this number to be plausible, as there is no dispersal distance available for the jaguar in the Cerrado. Each polygon was then assigned a score for each category
(Table 2) and the polygons were categorized into four types based on the sum of the scores: (1) high-priority jaguar conservation units, with a score of$9;(2)medium-priority jaguar conservation units, with a score of 5–8;(3)low- priority jaguar conservation units, with a score of 3–4; and (4) stepping stones between jaguar conservation units, with a score of #2. For the final jaguar conservation units, we estimated the
mean jaguar population according to the lowest and highest recent estimates (0.29 and 0.62 per 100 km2, respectively) for Emas National Park (Sollmann et al., 2011). We grouped the units into areas according to their distribution in the
Cerrado, and then overlapped them with areas suggested by the Brazilian government for biodiversity conservation, to identify and review the conservation actions already indicated for the geographical regions of priority jaguar conservation units (MMA, 2015). All spatial analyses and geoprocessing were conducted in ArcGIS.
Results
The best distribution model (AUC test = 0.805 ± SD 0.046, omission error = 0.209,P= 0.002) used 106 occurrence points and nine environmental layers. It identified 30%of the Cerrado (c. 687,059 km2) as being suitable for the jaguar (Fig. 3a). The model was accurate: 95.23% of the additional records used only for validation were predicted correctly. However, only 0.4% of the biome (8,345 km2) showed high suitability (.0.7) for the species. These areas were located primarily in the north-east of the biome and in small areas in the north-west, near the Amazon biome. The variables that best predicted jaguar distribution in
the Cerrado were mean rainfall (Table 3, Fig. 4)and land cover (Table 3, Fig. 5). The probability of jaguar presence was high in areas with 300–1,400 mm of rainfall; i.e. near the Caatinga biome, a semi-arid region of Brazil. There was also a high probability of jaguar presence in areas with 2,000 mm of rainfall, near the Amazon biome. Forest areas (open evergreen upper plains forest and forested grass- land savannah) had a high probability of jaguar presence, followed by some savannah types and secondary vegetation. The probability of jaguar presence in human-modified areas was low to medium (Fig. 5). Maximumenhanced vegetation index, forest height, and mean annual temperature also con- tributedsignificantly tothemodel (SupplementaryMaterial 3). We identified 62 jaguar core conservation areas
(555,796 km2; Fig. 3b), covering 27%ofthe Cerrado. Within these areas we identified 427 jaguar conservation units, covering 10%ofthe biome (219,100 km2). Most reserves were medium or low-priority jaguar conservation units be- cause of their small area (,2 km2) and distance fromstrictly protected areas (.113 km), with absence of jaguar records within a radius of up to 30 km and low importance for con- nectivity. Only 23,662 km2 (1% of the Cerrado) of the jaguar conservation units are within strictly protected areas. The ranking of jaguar conservation units prioritized
31 units (Fig. 6), in five areas (Table 4). Only 12 units over- lapped with an existing strictly protected area. High-priority jaguar conservation units covered 8.5% of the Cerrado biome (174,825 km2). Only four units could sustain a viable population ($50 individuals) and 24 could sustain two or more individuals (Table 4). Three units could not sustain amating pair butwere ranked highly because of jaguar pres- ence records inside the polygon, or high connectivity im- portance. Most high-priority units are within the areas of the Cerrado that the Brazilian government recognizes as
Oryx, 2020, 54(6), 854–865 © 2019 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605318000972
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