IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecomod/v297y2015icp11-19.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Modelling the ecological niche of an endangered population of Puma concolor: First application of the GNESFA method to an elusive carnivore

Author

Listed:
  • Caruso, N.
  • Guerisoli, M.
  • Luengos Vidal, E.M.
  • Castillo, D.
  • Casanave, E.B.
  • Lucherini, M.

Abstract

Throughout central Argentina the distribution of puma (Puma concolor) has substantially contracted and appears to be restricted to relatively pristine areas. We identified factors affecting puma habitat use at a landscape scale to produce a habitat suitability map in a grassland/scrubland ecoregion in central Argentina. Additionally, we examined the advantages of the general niche-environment system factor analysis (GNESFA) to determine the use of space of this carnivore. To determine the presence of the carnivore, we used the following methods of observation: (1) photographs via camera trapping surveys. (2) Semi-structured interviews of local people. (3) Direct observation by way of sightings of live animals. (4) Indirect sightings by way of tracks. (5) Opportunistically recordings of dead individuals. We used GNESFA to study the factors affecting the use of space by the puma considering environmental, biological, anthropogenic factors, and MADIFA (Mahalanobis distance factor analysis) to create a habitat suitability map. Most suitable locations for puma were away from cropland or urban areas and from roads. Distances to roads and to scrubland patches were the limiting variables that influenced the narrowness of the niche of this felid. Pumas in this region preferred an environment of patchy scrubland which is typically created by selective logging. They did not limit their environmental preferences to closed habitats. This paper reports the first analysis of the factors determining the distribution of pumas in a grassland/shrubland ecoregion in the southernmost part of its distribution. This suggests that pumas may use human-modified habitats and withstand some degree of deforestation and fragmentation. Our results confirm the usefulness of this integral approach to identify the factors affecting the ecological niche of a cryptic, highly-vagile species.

Suggested Citation

  • Caruso, N. & Guerisoli, M. & Luengos Vidal, E.M. & Castillo, D. & Casanave, E.B. & Lucherini, M., 2015. "Modelling the ecological niche of an endangered population of Puma concolor: First application of the GNESFA method to an elusive carnivore," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 297(C), pages 11-19.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:297:y:2015:i:c:p:11-19
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2014.11.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304380014005626
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2014.11.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Galparsoro, Ibon & Borja, Ángel & Bald, Juan & Liria, Pedro & Chust, Guillem, 2009. "Predicting suitable habitat for the European lobster (Homarus gammarus), on the Basque continental shelf (Bay of Biscay), using Ecological-Niche Factor Analysis," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 220(4), pages 556-567.
    2. Shcheglovitova, Mariya & Anderson, Robert P., 2013. "Estimating optimal complexity for ecological niche models: A jackknife approach for species with small sample sizes," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 269(C), pages 9-17.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nicolás Caruso & Mauro Lucherini & Daniel Fortin & Emma B Casanave, 2016. "Species-Specific Responses of Carnivores to Human-Induced Landscape Changes in Central Argentina," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(3), pages 1-16, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. H. Oğuz Çoban & Ömer K. Örücü & E. Seda Arslan, 2020. "MaxEnt Modeling for Predicting the Current and Future Potential Geographical Distribution of Quercus libani Olivier," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-17, March.
    2. Holder, Anna M. & Markarian, Arev & Doyle, Jessie M. & Olson, John R., 2020. "Predicting geographic distributions of fishes in remote stream networks using maximum entropy modeling and landscape characterizations," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 433(C).
    3. Boyang Liu & Xiang Gao & Jun Ma & Zhihui Jiao & Jianhua Xiao & Hongbin Wang, 2018. "Influence of Host and Environmental Factors on the Distribution of the Japanese Encephalitis Vector Culex tritaeniorhynchus in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-15, August.
    4. Moreno-Amat, Elena & Mateo, Rubén G. & Nieto-Lugilde, Diego & Morueta-Holme, Naia & Svenning, Jens-Christian & García-Amorena, Ignacio, 2015. "Impact of model complexity on cross-temporal transferability in Maxent species distribution models: An assessment using paleobotanical data," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 312(C), pages 308-317.
    5. Aldo Rafael Martínez-Sifuentes & José Antonio Hernández-Herrera & Luis Manuel Valenzuela-Núñez & Edwin Amir Briceño-Contreras & Ulises Manzanilla-Quiñones & Argel Gastélum-Arellánez & Ramón Trucíos-Ca, 2022. "Climate Change Impact on the Habitat Suitability of Pseudotsuga menziesii Mirb. Franco in Mexico: An Approach for Its Conservation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-17, July.
    6. Herkt, K. Matthias B. & Barnikel, Günter & Skidmore, Andrew K. & Fahr, Jakob, 2016. "A high-resolution model of bat diversity and endemism for continental Africa," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 320(C), pages 9-28.
    7. Wan, Nian-Feng & Jiang, Jie-Xian & Li, Bo, 2014. "Modeling ecological two-sidedness for complex ecosystems," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 287(C), pages 36-43.
    8. Sutton, G.F. & Martin, G.D., 2022. "Testing MaxEnt model performance in a novel geographic region using an intentionally introduced insect," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 473(C).
    9. Worthington, Thomas A. & Zhang, Tianjiao & Logue, Daniel R. & Mittelstet, Aaron R. & Brewer, Shannon K., 2016. "Landscape and flow metrics affecting the distribution of a federally-threatened fish: Improving management, model fit, and model transferability," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 342(C), pages 1-18.
    10. An Cao & Xueyi Shi, 2022. "The Effects of Climate Change on Habitat Connectivity: A Case Study of the Brown-Eared Pheasant in China," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-17, May.
    11. Marianna V. P. Simões & Hanieh Saeedi & Marlon E. Cobos & Angelika Brandt, 2021. "Environmental matching reveals non-uniform range-shift patterns in benthic marine Crustacea," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 168(3), pages 1-20, October.
    12. Cesar A Marchioro, 2016. "Global Potential Distribution of Bactrocera carambolae and the Risks for Fruit Production in Brazil," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(11), pages 1-16, November.
    13. Ayse Gul Sarikaya & Almira Uzun, 2024. "Modeling the Effects of Climate Change on the Current and Future Potential Distribution of Berberis vulgaris L. with Machine Learning," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-16, February.
    14. Watts, Michael J. & Li, Yuxiao & Russell, Bayden D. & Mellin, Camille & Connell, Sean D. & Fordham, Damien A., 2011. "A novel method for mapping reefs and subtidal rocky habitats using artificial neural networks," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 222(15), pages 2606-2614.
    15. Boria, Robert A. & Blois, Jessica L., 2018. "The effect of large sample sizes on ecological niche models: Analysis using a North American rodent, Peromyscus maniculatus," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 386(C), pages 83-88.
    16. Martín-García, Laura & González-Lorenzo, Gustavo & Brito-Izquierdo, Isabel T. & Barquín-Diez, Jacinto, 2013. "Use of topographic predictors for macrobenthic community mapping in the Marine Reserve of La Palma (Canary Islands, Spain)," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 263(C), pages 19-31.
    17. Amaro, George & Fidelis, Elisangela Gomes & da Silva, Ricardo Siqueira & Marchioro, Cesar Augusto, 2023. "Effect of study area extent on the potential distribution of Species: A case study with models for Raoiella indica Hirst (Acari: Tenuipalpidae)," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 483(C).
    18. Valentina Lucia Astrid Laface & Carmelo Maria Musarella & Gianmarco Tavilla & Agostino Sorgonà & Ana Cano-Ortiz & Ricardo Quinto Canas & Giovanni Spampinato, 2023. "Current and Potential Future Distribution of Endemic Salvia ceratophylloides Ard. (Lamiaceae)," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-21, January.
    19. Bruce G. Marcot & Anca M. Hanea, 2021. "What is an optimal value of k in k-fold cross-validation in discrete Bayesian network analysis?," Computational Statistics, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 2009-2031, September.
    20. Zeng, Yiwen & Low, Bi Wei & Yeo, Darren C.J., 2016. "Novel methods to select environmental variables in MaxEnt: A case study using invasive crayfish," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 341(C), pages 5-13.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:297:y:2015:i:c:p:11-19. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/ecological-modelling .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.