Jaguar movement pattern and habitat selection: new analytical challenges using GPS-satellite telemetry data

Abstract

Carnivore species are experiencing fragmentation of their habitat that limits and reduces their movements across the landscape, influencing gene flow and the dispersal in space and time. Understanding how fragmentation and landscape changes affect carnivore species via changes in movement behavior is critical for developing sustainable, effective and long-term conservation strategies for carnivores. Assessing changes in movement strategies can be helpful for addressing the species' response to different threats and changes in the landscape. Thus, I am proposing a unique study on top predator conservation using the jaguar as a model species to investigate changes in the movement pattern across a gradient of human disturbance from the Pantanal to the Caatinga and Atlantic Rainforest in Brazil. By integrating my unique and large data set on detailed jaguar movement with newly developed quantitative tools for analyzing animal movement at SCBI, I am proposing to answer critical research questions such as: 1) How do landscape structure and human population density affect top predator movement?; 2) Are these effects the result of a landscape of fear, i.e., human's limiting top predator area use?, or; 3) Are the effects more indirect, with human impacts reducing prey densities, and thus, changing top predator movement? I am expect that these analyses will provide new insights into top predator movement ecology which can be used to improve design and management of conservation landscapes and corridors for top predators (e.g. tiger, mountain lion, leopard, snow leopard) worldwide. (AU)