Abstract
The threatened thin-spined porcupine (Chaetomys subspinosus), a forest-specialist endemic to the Brazilian Atlantic forest, was rarely detected in the wild during the 20th century. Previous geographic distribution assessments were carried out nearly three decades ago and were based on interview data. We performed extensive field surveys (based on active search and interviews), a literature review, and species distribution modeling to predict and validate a more reliable picture of its geographic distribution and environmental suitability gradient. We identified the main predictors of species’ incidence, its conservation status, and pinpointed key areas for species conservation. Our results indicated that C. subspinosus is distributed continuously in the Atlantic forest from southeastern Espirito Santo to central-eastern Sergipe state, totaling 104,326 km2 of occurrence area, although only 3,299 km2 (13.3%) is currently represented by native forests (species habitat). C. subspinosus was absent or at least so rare that it was not detected in more than half of the locations sampled by interviews (53.5%). Our results suggest that populations are sensitive to climatic conditions and habitat loss, becoming abruptly rarer when the remaining forest cover reaches less than 10% area within a region (~ 5,000 km2 scale). This result indicates that the high deforestation level of the Atlantic forest is already close to the limit of regional species resistance. Bahia state still harbors the bulk of the remaining forest with high climatic suitability, and generally under low levels of legal protection. Herein we highlight priority areas and research gaps that could guide decision makers to promote conservation strategies for this threatened species.
Highlights
Species are disappearing at unprecedented rates, and a reliable picture of species distribution is needed to assess their conservation status and planning conservation efforts
Excluding all the northern and southern extreme portions (RJ, AL states, and northern Sergipe river), which are small areas where model commissions apparently occurred, the estimated extent of occurrence of the target species totaled 104,326 km2 (Fig 2B). We used this range for subsequent analysis, as this comprised the most reliable picture of the current realized species distribution, we present in the Supplemental Material (S1 Table) the quantitative attributes of the entire area predicted as environmentally suitable for the species
Distribution and conservation of the Chaetomys subspinosus a significant retraction, it is clear that habitat loss is a significant driver determining species decline within its extent of occurrence
Summary
Species are disappearing at unprecedented rates, and a reliable picture of species distribution is needed to assess their conservation status and planning conservation efforts. Ecological niche modeling (ENM) has been increasingly applied as a tool to assess and predict species distribution [3,4,5], conservation status [6,7,8,9] and to planning conservation priorities [10,11,12], the use of this tool will provide inaccurate information when available data for species occurrence are very scarce (e.g., < 10 records of occurrence) [13,14] In this situation, encompassing many threatened species, more field effort is required to increase the empirical knowledge on species occurrence. The species has been considered vulnerable to extinction since 1994 [19], and all assessments of its current conservation status, as well as conservation actions proposed, have been based on such unconfirmed mapping
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