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Range contractions of the world's large carnivores

The majority of the world's terrestrial large carnivores have undergone substantial range contractions and many of these species are currently threatened with extinction. However, there has been little effort to fully quantify the extent of large carnivore range contractions, which hinders our...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Wolf, Christopher, Ripple, William J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society Publishing 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5541531/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28791136
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170052
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author Wolf, Christopher
Ripple, William J.
author_facet Wolf, Christopher
Ripple, William J.
author_sort Wolf, Christopher
collection PubMed
description The majority of the world's terrestrial large carnivores have undergone substantial range contractions and many of these species are currently threatened with extinction. However, there has been little effort to fully quantify the extent of large carnivore range contractions, which hinders our ability to understand the roles and relative drivers of such trends. Here we present and analyse a newly constructed and comprehensive set of large carnivore range contraction maps. We reveal the extent to which ranges have contracted since historical times and identify regions and biomes where range contractions have been particularly large. In summary, large carnivores that have experienced the greatest range contractions include the red wolf (Canis rufus) (greater than 99%), Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis) (99%), tiger (Panthera tigris) (95%) and lion (Panthera leo) (94%). In general, the greatest range contractions occurred in Southeastern Asia and Africa. Motivated by the ecological importance of intact large carnivore guilds, we also examined the spatial extent of intact large carnivore guilds both for the entire world and regionally. We found that intact carnivore guilds occupy just 34% of the world's land area. This compares to 96% in historic times. Spatial modelling of range contractions showed that contractions were significantly more likely in regions with high rural human population density, cattle density or cropland. Our results offer new insights into how best to prevent further range contractions for the world's largest carnivores, which will assist efforts to conserve these species and their important ecological effects.
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spelling pubmed-55415312017-08-08 Range contractions of the world's large carnivores Wolf, Christopher Ripple, William J. R Soc Open Sci Biology (Whole Organism) The majority of the world's terrestrial large carnivores have undergone substantial range contractions and many of these species are currently threatened with extinction. However, there has been little effort to fully quantify the extent of large carnivore range contractions, which hinders our ability to understand the roles and relative drivers of such trends. Here we present and analyse a newly constructed and comprehensive set of large carnivore range contraction maps. We reveal the extent to which ranges have contracted since historical times and identify regions and biomes where range contractions have been particularly large. In summary, large carnivores that have experienced the greatest range contractions include the red wolf (Canis rufus) (greater than 99%), Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis) (99%), tiger (Panthera tigris) (95%) and lion (Panthera leo) (94%). In general, the greatest range contractions occurred in Southeastern Asia and Africa. Motivated by the ecological importance of intact large carnivore guilds, we also examined the spatial extent of intact large carnivore guilds both for the entire world and regionally. We found that intact carnivore guilds occupy just 34% of the world's land area. This compares to 96% in historic times. Spatial modelling of range contractions showed that contractions were significantly more likely in regions with high rural human population density, cattle density or cropland. Our results offer new insights into how best to prevent further range contractions for the world's largest carnivores, which will assist efforts to conserve these species and their important ecological effects. The Royal Society Publishing 2017-07-12 /pmc/articles/PMC5541531/ /pubmed/28791136 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170052 Text en © 2017 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Biology (Whole Organism)
Wolf, Christopher
Ripple, William J.
Range contractions of the world's large carnivores
title Range contractions of the world's large carnivores
title_full Range contractions of the world's large carnivores
title_fullStr Range contractions of the world's large carnivores
title_full_unstemmed Range contractions of the world's large carnivores
title_short Range contractions of the world's large carnivores
title_sort range contractions of the world's large carnivores
topic Biology (Whole Organism)
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5541531/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28791136
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170052
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