A review of environmental and anthropogenic variables used to model jaguar occurrence

By

Montalvo, Víctor H.
Sáenz-Bolaños, Carolina
Carrillo, Eduardo
Fuller, Todd K

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2023-1-30

Original Publication

Neotropical Biology and Conservation

Volume

18

Series / Issue

Issue: 1

Pages

31--51

Subjects

Habitat , Humans , Landscapes , Panthera onca , prey , Roads , roads habitat

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Brazil Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/neotropical.18.e98437

 

Abstract

Jaguars (Panthera onca) are a landscape species of conservation importance and our understanding of environmental and anthropogenic drivers of jaguar occurrence is necessary to improve conservation strategies. We reviewed available literature to simply describe environmental and anthropogenic variables used and found to be significant in occurrence modeling. We reviewed 95 documents published from 1980 to 2021 that focused on jaguar occurrence and that used 39 variable types (21 anthropogenic, 18 environmental) among different techniques, scales, and approaches. In general, these variables included both anthropogenic (roads, land use, human activities, and population) and environmental (climate, vegetation, ecological interactions, topographic, water, and others) factors. Twelve variables were identified as affecting jaguar occurrence overall, eleven at local scale and seven at broad scales (regional and continental). Focusing more specifically on the variables that correlate with occurrence should help researchers to make better predictions in areas without quantitative jaguar data.