Ecological and geographical analysis of the distribution of the mountain tapir (Tapirus pinchaque) in Ecuador: importance of protected areas in future scenarios of global warming.

H Mauricio Ortega-Andrade,David A Prieto-Torres,Diego J Lizcano,Ignacio Gómez-Lora,Rafael Dias Loyola

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0121137

Abstract

In Ecuador, Tapirus pinchaque is considered to be critically endangered. Although the species has been registered in several localities, its geographic distribution remains unclear, and the effects of climate change and current land uses on this species are largely unknown. We modeled the ecological niche of T. pinchaque using MaxEnt, in order to assess its potential adaptation to present and future climate change scenarios. We evaluated the effects of habitat loss due by current land use, the ecosystem availability and importance of Ecuadorian System of Protected Areas into the models. The model of environmental suitability estimated an extent of occurrence for species of 21,729 km2 in all of Ecuador, mainly occurring along the corridor of the eastern Ecuadorian Andes. A total of 10 Andean ecosystems encompassed ~98% of the area defined by the model, with herbaceous paramo, northeastern Andean montane evergreen forest and northeastern Andes upper montane evergreen forest being the most representative. When considering the effect of habitat loss, a significant reduction in model area (~17%) occurred, and the effect of climate change represented a net reduction up to 37.86%. However, the synergistic effect of both climate change and habitat loss, given current land use practices, could represent a greater risk in the short-term, leading to a net reduction of 19.90 to 44.65% in T. pinchaque’s potential distribution. Even under such a scenarios, several Protected Areas harbor a portion (~36 to 48%) of the potential distribution defined by the models. However, the central and southern populations are highly threatened by habitat loss and climate change. Based on these results and due to the restricted home range of T. pinchaque, its preference for upland forests and paramos, and its small estimated population size in the Andes, we suggest to maintaining its current status as Critically Endangered in Ecuador.

Highlights

The mountain tapir, Tapirus pinchaque [1], is the smallest tapir species [2,3] and is considered to be evolutionarily distinct from its closer relatives in the Amazonian lowlands [4]
We evaluated the performance of the MaxEnt model by calculating the commission and omission errors [46], the Area Under the Curve (AUC) of the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve [19,37], as well as by the partial ROC curves test [47]
The predicted and remnant areas of the potential distribution model for the mountain tapir in the Ecuadorian Andes are detailed in Tables 2 and 3

Summary

Introduction

The mountain tapir, Tapirus pinchaque [1], is the smallest tapir species [2,3] and is considered to be evolutionarily distinct from its closer relatives in the Amazonian lowlands [4]. The mountain tapir is a key species for conservation [7,8] do to its ecological role as a seed disperser and its complex history of co-evolution and adaptation to Andean environments [6,9] This species is currently considered as Globally Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Main threats to populations in the Andes are related to habitat loss, fragmentation and hunting pressure [10] Despite their ecological importance and conservation status, the distribution of the mountain tapir and its potential response to future climate change scenarios have not been well-evaluated, and such an understanding would have implications for its conservation at both, regional and continental scale

Methods

Results

Conclusion