Assessing the importance of prey, climate change, and human footprint for modeling current and future distribution of Leopardus guigna

Abstract

Species distribution models based solely on climatic variables are limited in their ability to predict future geographic ranges. One way to overcome this difficulty is to incorporate biological variables relevant to the focal species and variables representing the anthropogenic effect in the study area. Leopardus guigna (güiña) is a charismatic and threatened feline species of southern South America. Based on climatic models, it has recently been proposed that up to 40% of its habitat will be lost shortly. We used ecological niche modeling to evaluate how climate change, anthropogenic pressure, and prey richness influence its distribution range. We used species occurrence records and 2 temporal windows (current and future) to generate distribution models applying the maximum entropy algorithm. Leopardus guigna habitat presence was influenced more by precipitation and prey species richness than by anthropogenic and other abiotic factors. Our results suggest that despite its sensitivity to changes in temperature and precipitation or potential vulnerability to future climate scenarios, güiña's predicted distribution change remains low. Therefore, it is important to consider not only climatic variables in the temporal dynamics of species distribution induced by phenomena, such as climate change and human footprint, but also variables involving biotic interactions.

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