Predicting suitable nesting sites for the Black caiman (Melanosuchus niger Spix 1825) in the Central Amazon basin
After many years of illegal hunting and commercialization, the populations of the Black caiman (Melanosuchus niger) have been recovering during the last four decades due to the enforcement of a legislation that inhibits their international commercialization. Protecting nesting sites, in which vulner...
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doaj-5dbf53259c314e32b188f18c0eaab3b52020-11-25T01:44:25ZengTaylor & Francis GroupNeotropical Biodiversity2376-68082019-01-0151475910.1080/23766808.2019.16460661646066Predicting suitable nesting sites for the Black caiman (Melanosuchus niger Spix 1825) in the Central Amazon basinGabriela Paola Ribeiro Banon0Gerald Jean Francis Banon1Francisco Villamarín2Eduardo Moraes Arraut3Gabriel Massaine Moulatlet4Camilo Daleles Rennó5Lise Christine Banon6Boris Marioni7Evlyn Márcia Leão De Moraes Novo8Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas EspaciaisInstituto Nacional de Pesquisas EspaciaisUniversidad Regional Amazónica - IkiamInstituto Nacional de Pesquisas EspaciaisUniversidad Regional Amazónica - IkiamInstituto Nacional de Pesquisas EspaciaisInstituto Nacional de Pesquisas EspaciaisInstituto PiagaçuInstituto Nacional de Pesquisas EspaciaisAfter many years of illegal hunting and commercialization, the populations of the Black caiman (Melanosuchus niger) have been recovering during the last four decades due to the enforcement of a legislation that inhibits their international commercialization. Protecting nesting sites, in which vulnerable life forms (as reproductive females, eggs, and neonates) spend considerable time, is one of the most appropriate conservation actions aimed at preserving caiman populations. Thus, identifying priority areas for this activity should be the primary concern of conservationists. As caiman nesting sites are often found across the areas with difficult access, collecting nest information requires extensive and costly fieldwork efforts. In this context, species distribution modeling can be a valuable tool for predicting the locations of caiman nests in the Amazon basin. In this work, the maximum entropy method (MaxEnt) was applied to model the M. niger nest occurrence in the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve (MSDR) using remotely sensed data. By taking into account the M. niger nesting habitat, the following predictor variables were considered: conditional distance to open water, distance to bare soil, expanded contributing area from drainage, flood duration, and vegetation type. The threshold-independent prediction performance and binary prediction based on the threshold value of 0.9 were evaluated by the area under the curve (AUC) and performing a binomial test, respectively. The obtained results (AUC = 0.967 $$ \pm $$ 0.006 and a highly significant binomial test $$P \lt 0.01$$) indicated excellent performance of the proposed model in predicting the M. niger nesting occurrence in the MSDR. The variables related to hydrological regimes (conditional distance to open water, expanded contributing area from drainage, and flood duration) most strongly affected the model performance. MaxEnt can be used for developing community-based sustainable management programs to provide socio-economic benefits to local communities and promote species conservation in a much larger area within the Amazon basin.http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23766808.2019.1646066amazon floodplainamazonian caimanecological conservationmaximum entropy modelingnesting habitat |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Gabriela Paola Ribeiro Banon Gerald Jean Francis Banon Francisco Villamarín Eduardo Moraes Arraut Gabriel Massaine Moulatlet Camilo Daleles Rennó Lise Christine Banon Boris Marioni Evlyn Márcia Leão De Moraes Novo |
spellingShingle |
Gabriela Paola Ribeiro Banon Gerald Jean Francis Banon Francisco Villamarín Eduardo Moraes Arraut Gabriel Massaine Moulatlet Camilo Daleles Rennó Lise Christine Banon Boris Marioni Evlyn Márcia Leão De Moraes Novo Predicting suitable nesting sites for the Black caiman (Melanosuchus niger Spix 1825) in the Central Amazon basin Neotropical Biodiversity amazon floodplain amazonian caiman ecological conservation maximum entropy modeling nesting habitat |
author_facet |
Gabriela Paola Ribeiro Banon Gerald Jean Francis Banon Francisco Villamarín Eduardo Moraes Arraut Gabriel Massaine Moulatlet Camilo Daleles Rennó Lise Christine Banon Boris Marioni Evlyn Márcia Leão De Moraes Novo |
author_sort |
Gabriela Paola Ribeiro Banon |
title |
Predicting suitable nesting sites for the Black caiman (Melanosuchus niger Spix 1825) in the Central Amazon basin |
title_short |
Predicting suitable nesting sites for the Black caiman (Melanosuchus niger Spix 1825) in the Central Amazon basin |
title_full |
Predicting suitable nesting sites for the Black caiman (Melanosuchus niger Spix 1825) in the Central Amazon basin |
title_fullStr |
Predicting suitable nesting sites for the Black caiman (Melanosuchus niger Spix 1825) in the Central Amazon basin |
title_full_unstemmed |
Predicting suitable nesting sites for the Black caiman (Melanosuchus niger Spix 1825) in the Central Amazon basin |
title_sort |
predicting suitable nesting sites for the black caiman (melanosuchus niger spix 1825) in the central amazon basin |
publisher |
Taylor & Francis Group |
series |
Neotropical Biodiversity |
issn |
2376-6808 |
publishDate |
2019-01-01 |
description |
After many years of illegal hunting and commercialization, the populations of the Black caiman (Melanosuchus niger) have been recovering during the last four decades due to the enforcement of a legislation that inhibits their international commercialization. Protecting nesting sites, in which vulnerable life forms (as reproductive females, eggs, and neonates) spend considerable time, is one of the most appropriate conservation actions aimed at preserving caiman populations. Thus, identifying priority areas for this activity should be the primary concern of conservationists. As caiman nesting sites are often found across the areas with difficult access, collecting nest information requires extensive and costly fieldwork efforts. In this context, species distribution modeling can be a valuable tool for predicting the locations of caiman nests in the Amazon basin. In this work, the maximum entropy method (MaxEnt) was applied to model the M. niger nest occurrence in the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve (MSDR) using remotely sensed data. By taking into account the M. niger nesting habitat, the following predictor variables were considered: conditional distance to open water, distance to bare soil, expanded contributing area from drainage, flood duration, and vegetation type. The threshold-independent prediction performance and binary prediction based on the threshold value of 0.9 were evaluated by the area under the curve (AUC) and performing a binomial test, respectively. The obtained results (AUC = 0.967 $$ \pm $$ 0.006 and a highly significant binomial test $$P \lt 0.01$$) indicated excellent performance of the proposed model in predicting the M. niger nesting occurrence in the MSDR. The variables related to hydrological regimes (conditional distance to open water, expanded contributing area from drainage, and flood duration) most strongly affected the model performance. MaxEnt can be used for developing community-based sustainable management programs to provide socio-economic benefits to local communities and promote species conservation in a much larger area within the Amazon basin. |
topic |
amazon floodplain amazonian caiman ecological conservation maximum entropy modeling nesting habitat |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23766808.2019.1646066 |
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