Umbrella species are employed as conservation short-cuts for the design of reserves or reserve networks. However, empirical data on the effectiveness of umbrellas is equivocal, which has prevented more widespread application of this conservation strategy. We perform a novel large-scale evaluation of umbrella species by assessing the potential umbrella value of a jaguar (Panthera onca) conservation network (consisting of viable populations and corridors) that extends from Mexico to Argentina. Using species richness, habitat quality, and fragmentation indices of ~ 1500 co-occurring mammal species, we show that jaguar populations and corridors overlap a substantial amount and percentage of high-quality habitat for co-occurring mammals, and that the jaguar network performs better than random networks in protecting high-quality, interior habitat. Significantly, the effectiveness of the jaguar network as an umbrella would not have been noticeable had we focused on species richness as our sole metric of umbrella utility. Substantial inter-order variability existed, indicating the need for complementary conservation strategies for certain groups of mammals. We offer several reasons for the positive result we document, including the large spatial scale of our analysis and our focus on multiple metrics of umbrella effectiveness. Taken together, our results demonstrate that a regional, single-species conservation strategy can serve as an effective umbrella for the larger community, and should help conserve viable populations and connectivity for a suite of co-occurring mammals. Current and future range-wide planning exercises for other large predators may therefore have important umbrella benefits.
Habitat suitability for Mammals in JCUs and Corridors
This file is an Excel database with four worksheets which details the results of an overlap analysis performed in ArcGIS between mammal habitat suitability models and Jaguar Conservation Units and corridors. Worksheets are labeled as "CA_JCU_Analysis", "SA_JCU_Analysis", "CA_Corridor_Analysis" and "SA_Corridor_Analysis". A description of each of these worksheets follows: "CA_JCU_Analysis" details the proportion of high, medium, and low quality habitat of co-occurring mammals that is contained within Jaguar Conservation Units (assuming the total available to be conserved is defined as either the total amount of habitat for each species within Central America, or within the range of the jaguar in Central America). Each row represents the values for a different species, and the columns the different categories of habitat quality. "SA_JCU_Analysis" details the proportion of high, medium, and low quality habitat of co-occurring mammals that is contained within Jaguar Conservation Units (assuming the total available to be conserved is defined as either the total amount of habitat for each species within South America, or within the range of the jaguar in South America). Each row represents the values for a different species, and the columns the different categories of habitat quality. "CA_Corridor_Analysis" shows the proportion of high quality habitat for co-occuring mammals in Central America that is contained within corridors - this value was calculated by summing the amount of high, medium, and low quality habitat contained within corridors and dividing by the total area of the corridor. This analysis was done for the actual modeled jaguar corridors, as well as 10 randomly generated corridors. Each row represents the value for each species, and each column represents the actual corridor or a randomly generated corridor, for each category of habitat quality. SA_Corridor_Analysis shows the proportion of high quality habitat for co-occuring mammals in South America that is contained within corridors - this value was calculated by summing the amount of high, medium, and low quality habitat contained within corridors and dividing by the total area of the corridor. This analysis was done for the actual modeled jaguar corridors, as well as 10 randomly generated corridors.
Assessing_umbrella_value_data_for_dryad.xlsx