Tayassuidae

From February 29th to March 3rd 2016, a range wide, multistakeholder
species conservation planning workshop took place for the Chacoan peccary (Catagonus wagneri) in Asuncion, Paraguay. Details on the status of the Chacoan peccary, the workshop and its outcomes can be found in Altrichter et al. elsewhere in this Volume of Suiform Soundings. This paper focusses on the use of the population viability analysis software “Vortex” (Lacy and Pollak, 2015) as an integral component of the workshop.

The Chacoan peccary (Catagonus wagneri), or Tagua, an endemic species living in the Chaco ecoregion, is endangered by highly increasing deforestation rates across the region, particularly in the last decade. This situation highlights the need to better understand the current distribution of the species, as well as how environmental conditions affect habitat suitability. This study predicts the distribution of the Chacoan peccary and evaluates the current environmental conditions in the Chaco for this species. Using six environmental variables and 177 confirmed occurrence records (from 2000 to 2015) provided by researchers, we developed a Species Distribution Model (SDM) applying the Maxent algorithm. The final model was highly accurate and significant (p < 0.001; AUC 0.860 ± 0.0268; omission error 1.82 %; posthoc validation of omission error using independent presence only records 1.33 %), predicting that 46.24 % of the Chaco is suitable habitat for the Chacoan peccary, with the most important areas concentrated in the middle of Paraguay and northern Argentina. Land cover,  Isothermality and elevation were the variables that better explained the habitat suitability for the Chacoan peccary. Despite some portions of suitable areas occurring inside protected areas, the borders and the central portions of suitable areas have recently suffered from intensive deforestation and development, and most of the highly suitable areas for the species are not under protection. The results provide fundamental insights for the establishment of priority Chacoan peccary conservation areas within its range.