Jaguars as a case study

Ok,

So now I have all things technical working and sorted I can continue discussing my actual work :)

I've mentioned that my work has its roots in ongoing fieldwork in Belize. My target species is the Jaguar: an apex predator, the third largest feline in the world (behind the lion and the tiger) and a probable keystone species: the jaguar plays an important role in stabilising and controlling the ecosystems in which they are found.

Jaguars were historically found from the southern United States to northern Argentina, although this range has been reduced but up to 40-50%, with much of the existing area more highly fragmented and vulnerable to disturbance.

Territories of typical individuals range from approximately 10-40km2 for females to 30-80 km2 for males. Density varies a lot, with maybe 0.2 per 100km2 in some areas of Brazil to 8-10 per 100km2 in the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary in Belize.

The main reasons for this flexibility and variability in density and territory size is thought to centre around prey density and availability and amount/quality of habitat.  Belize has some of the highest density of Jaguars throughout its entire range.

Jaguars are, in their own right, deserved of conservation efforts. However, with their large ranges and daily movement requirements (up to 4km in a single day), any effort to conserve habitat for jaguars will lead to extensive biodiversity preservation, with numerous species and vegetation communities protected within the cats range.

The jaguar can therefore be viewed in the basic sense as an indicator of the quality and extend of suitable habitat in any landscape. My modelling efforts use the jaguar as a case study, to promote jaguar conservation itself but also to address larger scale ecosystem function and resilience questions.

PhD - first step

So first year over, now its on to some new research.


My first thought was, where do I go next?

My PhD is aimed at a real-life problems. My case study is a corridor area in Belize, in central america.

The issues remain the same as with the hedgehog work. How do mammals move through the landscape? How will increased habitat fragmentation affect the movement of mammals through the landscape? How do we measure landscape permeability? How can we best model the effects of landscape structure on the movement of mammals in a landscape?


These questions have huge implications on the persistence of populations in a landscape and on the amount of disturbance and development that a landscape can absorb before a population reaches a threshold tipping point. My research is really focused on questions surrounding ecosystem function and resilience.

"To halt the decline of an ecosystem, it is necessary to think like an ecosystem."

- Douglas P. Wheeler, EPA Journal,September-October 1990

The overall goal of my research is to attempt to understand how a species views and interacts with its environment. Exploring these issues and gaining some understanding of the relationship between animals and their environment can help us understand ecosystems function and how anthropogenic processes may affect ecosystem processes.