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. 2024 Mar 22;19(3):e0300375. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0300375

Preserving the spots: Jaguar (Panthera onca) distribution and priority conservation areas in Colombia

María Camila Machado-Aguilera 1,2, Leonardo Lemus-Mejía 1, Jairo Pérez-Torres 2, Diego A Zárrate-Charry 1,3, Andrés Arias-Alzate 4, José F González-Maya 1,5,*
Editor: Dárius Pukenis Tubelis6
PMCID: PMC10959345  PMID: 38517860

Abstract

The jaguar (Panthera onca) is a charismatic species considered Vulnerable in Colombia but yet largely unknown in the country. The species is mostly threatened by the continuous decline in its habitats, mostly derived from deforestation and habitat loss, additional to hunting and conflicts with humans. Thus, the future of jaguars in Colombia depends on protecting and recovering existing habitats. The aims of this study were to 1) evaluate jaguar distribution and identify the remnant patches of habitat in Colombia, 2) define an ecological connectivity network within the country, and 3) propose a priority areas portfolio for the conservation and recovery of jaguars. We used a presence background model for estimating species potential distribution and subsequently identified remaining habitat patches across the country based on land cover and species-specific ecological attributes. We then created an ecological connectivity network based on circuit theory and following a multi-criteria approach identified jaguar priority areas for conservation (JPCA) and recovery (JPRA). Jaguar potential distribution comprises 1103122.43 km2, from which 56.71% maintain suitable patches of potential habitat. We identified 960 corridors between remnant patches of natural or semi-natural vegetation. Based on the criteria, JPCAs with greater importance were identified in each of the five Colombian regions. JPRAs were located mainly towards the Andean and Caribbean regions. These JPCAs and JPRAs could serve as a guide for designing and implementing management strategies for the long-term conservation and recovery of the species in Colombia.

Introduction

Land-use change is the main driver for habitat loss and fragmentation, the leading causes of biodiversity loss around the world [1, 2]. In Colombia, these processes result from constant land transformations generated by an increase in urbanization, cattle ranching, agriculture, and illicit crops [3]. This has caused changes in landscape structures, with detrimental effects on species ecological dynamics (especially for carnivore species), such as population isolation, genetic flow alteration, changes in abundance and distribution, among others [1, 4, 5].

The jaguar (Panthera onca) is a predator classified as Near Threatened (NT) globally according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species [6] but considered Vulnerable (VU) in Colombia [7] and in most countries of its distribution, and in spite of such discrepancy, and most importantly, it is estimated that ~97% of its populations are considered either Endangered or Critically Endangered at continental scale [8]. It is the largest felid in the Americas and the only representative of the genus Panthera in the continent [9, 10]. Its overall requirements of extensive areas of natural habitats and high prey availability [11, 12] and low reproductive rates and densities [13–15], make it a susceptible species and an indicator of healthy ecosystems [13]. The species is found in a great variety of habitats, from dense forests to swamps or dry areas [16], and is mainly found in elevations below 3200 m [17, 18].

Colombia has been recognized as a critical region for connecting jaguar populations between Central and South America [19]. Within the country, five jaguar subpopulations have been identified; the Amazon, Biogeographic Choco, Paramillo-San Lucas, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and Serrania de Perija-Catatumbo [8]. However, the historical landscape changes caused by habitat fragmentation and loss, are decreasing the species potential habitat [20–22] and have reduced its occupied distribution by 39% in the country [23]. Consequently, the species populations are increasingly isolated, and its genetic diversity is reducing, making the jaguar more vulnerable to extinction at different scales [24]. Additionally, local communities’ excessive hunting of their prey increases the negative interactions with humans due to cattle predation and retaliatory hunting, which enhances the risk for the species [21, 22, 25, 26].

In response to these threats, previous efforts for identifying priority areas and corridors for the species conservation have occurred at continental [14, 18, 19] and national levels, like Mexico [10, 27], Brazil [28, 29], and Nicaragua [30]. In Colombia, previous approximations have identified some priority areas [23, 31, 32], and only one has proposed potential jaguar corridors at national level [31]. Nevertheless, considering the availability of new tools for generating objective spatial approaches, the considerable increase in basic jaguar information, and the need for robust and comprehensive landscape analysis for the species in a critical area such as Colombia, generating new approaches for spatially assessing jaguar conservation priorities was warranted. The objectives of this study where to: 1) evaluate jaguar distribution and identify the potential remnant habitat patches in Colombia, 2) define the ecological connectivity network within the remnant patches, and 3) propose a portfolio with prioritization areas of potential habitat remnants for the conservation and recovery of the jaguar in Colombia.

Materials and methods

Study area

Colombia is considered the critical connection between jaguar populations of Central and South America [18]. It is located in the northwestern part of South America, sharing borders with Panama, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, the Caribbean Sea, and the Pacific Ocean [33]. It has a land surface extension of 1141748 km2 [34] and comprises five natural regions: Amazon, Andean, Caribbean, Orinoco and Pacific [34, 35].

The country’s topography is dominated by the presence of the Andean Mountain range (i.e., the Andes) which splits into three independent branches (i.e., central, eastern, and western cordilleras) and an isolated range, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. This topography also includes the presence of unique biomes such as the Orinoco plains, locally known as "Llanos Orientales" and the Amazon rainforests [36]. These large orographic and altitudinal variations (0–5800 m) determine the high environmental variability of the country [36, 37], which generates a high ecosystems diversity, allowing the presence of a great number of species, making Colombia one of the most biodiverse countries of the world [37, 38].

Colombia has a large variety of ecosystems, from deserts to tropical forests [37], having a total of 91 ecosystems, of which 70 are natural and 21 transformed [39]. Nevertheless, 22 ecosystems are categorized as critically endangered, 14 as endangered, and 12 as vulnerable [37]. Cattle ranching is the country’s largest economic activity with the highest representation, occupying 85% of the agricultural lands, reason why it is considered the dominant land-use of the country and the main driver of landscape transformation [3].

The country also has 498745.15 km2 covered by protected areas, including terrestrial and marine areas. In total, as for 2020, Colombia had 1671 protected areas from which 1236 are local protected areas, 313 regional and, 122 national-level areas [40]. New areas are either under planning or in the process of official declaration, especially at sub-national levels and in private lands, and most likely this number will keep changing in coming years.

Species data

As the basis for the modeling approach, we collected as many available jaguar records as possible for the country from multiple sources. We collected records of jaguar presence from secondary sources such as 1) biodiversity data sets (i.e., GBIF, Species Link, Data Basin [41–43], 2) literature [44–54], and 3) our own data derived from validated records of direct observations, camera-trap data, predation events with confirmation of the predator, among others. We applied two complementary filters for depurating the records to obtain the most reliable species potential distribution. The first filter focuses on credibility and the second focuses on geographic precision of each record [55]. Credibility combines the type of evidence (e.g., human observation, machine observation, collected specimen, etc.) with source type (e.g., scientific articles, thesis, etc.). Geographic precision is based on the spatial information associated with each record and validated with official cartographic sources [55]. We carried out this process using an RStudio code [56–64]. According to these filters (i.e., credibility and geographic precision), we classified each record in three categories of reliability: low, medium, or high (Table 1) [65]. We removed all records classified as with low reliability and dropped duplicated information from the analysis. Finally, we applied a spatial thinning of 1km for all other records [66].

Table 1. Criteria used for classifying reliability of Panthera onca records for distribution modelling of the species in Colombia.

Criteria Attributes Reliability
Evidence Preserved specimen High
Machine observation High
Human observation Medium
Material sample Medium
No data Low
Source Peer reviewed article High
Expert validates record High
Museum Medium
Datasets Medium/high
Geographic precision Department and Municipality High
Department Medium
Municipality Low
None Low
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Calibration area and climatic data

To generate the species potential distribution, we first identified and selected all ecoregions [67] with historical and current confirmed records of the species and defined these as the accessible area (M sensu stricto) [68] and the model´s calibration area [69, 70]. Afterwards, we obtained 19 bioclimatic variables from WorldClim2 [71] and estimated Spearman correlation scores in order to remove highly correlated variables, with values equal to or greater than 0.8 [70]. We also considered the most important variables according to permutation and contribution percentages, based on the jackknife test implemented in Maxent [72] and the variables used in other studies [28, 70]. We then selected seven bioclimatic variables: mean diurnal range (Bio2), temperature seasonality (Bio4), max temperature of warmest Month (Bio5), temperature annual range (Bio7), annual precipitation (Bio12), precipitation of driest month (Bio14), and precipitation of coldest quarter (Bio19).

Jaguar potential distribution estimation

With the selected variables, we modeled the species potential distribution using Wallace platform [73], based on the maximum entropy (Maxent) algorithm [69]. For parametrization and calibration, and to obtain the best possible model that better fitted the data, we used five feature classes (linear = L, hinge = H, linear/quadratic = LQ, linear/quadratic/hinge = LQH and linear/quadratic/hinge/product = LQHP) [74–76] and nine regularization multipliers (0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4 and 4.5) [72, 75]. Then from all possible candidate models, we selected the best model using the Akaike information criterion (AIC); the best model was the one with the lowest AIC value [77, 78]. This model was validated using a spatial partitioning approach using the checkerboard2 method [77]. Subsequently, the final model was transformed into a binary output using the minimum training presence threshold as it reduces omission errors [79]. Then we refined the model based on the altitude range in which the jaguar has been reported (0–3200 m) [16, 17], and estimated the total range currently covered by protected areas in the country.

Identification of remaining habitat patches

We used a spatial approach using the national land-cover types via GIS procedures to identify the remnant patches of potential habitat for the species within its estimated distribution range. We obtained the national land-cover map for 2012 [80] and selected the land-covers reported as jaguar habitat from the literature: dense forest, open forest, gallery forest, fragmented forest, secondary vegetation, natural grasslands, swamps, and coastal swamps [41, 70, 81, 82]. We then clipped these coverages with the species potential distribution to obtain a proxy of the potentially occupied habitats. Then we estimated each patch area and selected those with a size equal to or greater than 23.5 km2, based on previous home range estimations, but that might serve as stepping stones that would allow movement through fragmented landscapes [29].

Functional connectivity network definition

We created the connectivity network based on circuit theory [83]. For this, we used remnant patches identified and developed a resistance layer based on the human footprint index for Colombia (HFI) [84]. This layer is composed of variables that better reflect human influence (i.e., rural population density, distance to roads and settlements, land use, fragmentation index of natural vegetation, biomass index, and time of intervention) [84]and the ones that most likely restrict the species mobility across a landscape. We rescaled the human footprint index from 1–100 to create a resistance layer [85], where the highest values represented a greater human influence [84] and hence a greater resistance for the species mobility. For this analysis, we used Linkage Mapper 2.0 [86] toolbox in ArcGIS to estimate the least cost path corridors between patches. A maximum Euclidean distance of 113 km was chosen, which is the median dispersal distance of the species [29], thus preventing corridors overestimation [85]. Finally, we calculated centrality values for each core habitat indicating their importance and contribution to the connectivity network [87–89].

Selection of jaguar priority areas in Colombia

To define priority areas, we selected the most appropriate criteria for selecting important jaguar areas based on a literature review in online repositories (i.e., Google Scholar, Web of Science). We identified a set of criteria used by multiple similar exercises [14, 28, 29, 90–92] and narrowed them to the most appropriate list according to data availability and pertinence for Colombia. Therefore, we estimated a priority scheme considering four criteria for each core habitat patch: 1) human footprint index (HFI) [84], calculated as the percentage of pixels with HFI values under 15 [84], as a proxy of the overall human influence indicating low human impact [84]; 2) patch size [27–29], as the total area of core habitat; 3) level of protection, as the percentage of each patch under any Protected Area category [91–93]; and, 4) connectivity importance (i.e., centrality value), estimated as the relative importance of each core patch for the whole connectivity network [87–89].

We normalized all criteria values to a 0–1 scale and weighted each of the remnant patches identified. Considering the area requirements of the species [10, 11], we additionally assigned more weight to the area criterion by assigning three scores for patch size: a score of 1 for those patches with areas between 23.5 and 1200 km2 (i.e., one of the largest home ranges reported for a male) [94], score of 2 for areas between 1200 and 5000 km2 and score of 3 for areas greater than 5000 km2 (i.e., areas large enough for maintaining viable a population of 50 individuals) [29].

Then, we defined those areas with total weighted values greater than 3, considering all criteria, as jaguar priority conservation areas (JPCA). We classified these JPCAs into two categories: 1) (JPCA I) areas with values greater than 4 and 2) (JPCA II) areas with weighed values greater than 3 but less or equal to 4. At the same time, we also defined areas with total values less or equal to 3 as jaguar priority recovery areas (JPRA). Namely, the areas with lower weights but greater conservation attention for the species recovery. We classified these JPRAs into two categories: 1) (JPRA I) areas with values greater than 2 but less or equal to 3, and 2) (JPRA II) areas with total weighted values less or equal to 2.

Results

Jaguar potential distribution estimation

We obtained 535 confirmed records of the species (S1 Table, also available through the Open Science Framework repository; doi: 10.17605/OSF.IO/RKDS9), of which 388 remained after the filtering process. The best two models (AIC of 10753.6 and 10754.05) had the LQHP feature class, with 4 and 3 regularization multipliers and an omission rate of 0 and 0.005, respectively (S2 Table). According to the permutation importance, the most important predictor variables were precipitation of the driest month (25.6%) and precipitation of the coldest quarter (22.8%), followed by annual precipitation (14.9%) and the temperature annual range (11.4%) (Table 2).

Table 2. Climatic variables used to estimate the jaguar (Panthera onca) potential distribution in Colombia and their permutation importance.

Variable Permutation importance
Bio14: Precipitation of Driest Month 25.65
Bio19: Precipitation of Coldest Quarter 22.76
Bio12: Annual Precipitation 14.89
Bio7: Temperature Annual Range 11.39
Bio2: Mean Diurnal Range 10.58
Bio5: Maximum Temperature of Warmest Month 9.20
Bio4: Temperature Seasonality 5.53
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Total estimated jaguar potential distribution covers an area of 1103122.43 km2 in Colombia, being potentially distributed in almost the entire country, with a very low probability of occupying areas above 3200 m in the three mountain ranges, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, and in a central portion of the Chocó region (Fig 1). Of this range, only 172975.35 km2 (15.6%) are currently under a protection category, consisting mainly of national natural parks (66.18%), natural reserves (11.47%), regional integrated management districts (11.24%), among others.

Fig 1. Jaguar (Panthera onca) potential distribution based on an ecological niche modeling approach for Colombia.

Fig 1

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Boundaries were obtained from the Vector Map Level 0 [95], and the natural regions from IGAC [35].

Identification of remaining habitat patches

We identified 497 remnant patches of potential habitat, covering a total area of 625532.48 km2, representing 56.71% of the species potential distribution. Of the total area of remaining patches, 367005.31 km2 (58.67%) corresponded to the Amazon, 136518.22 km2 (21.82%) to the Orinoco, 58867.49 km2 (9.41%) to the Andean, 50823.81 km2 (8.12%) to the Pacific and, 12317.65 km2 (1.97%) to the Caribbean regions. Patch sizes ranged from 23.5 to 196466 km2, with a mean (±SD) area of 1258.6±10264.45 km2. The small patches (23.5–100 km2) were the most abundant (72%) and only 7.24% of the patches had sizes larger than 1200 km2 (Fig 2A). The largest patch (196466 km2) is located in the Amazon region and represents 31.4% of the total patches area. The dominant land cover within all patches identified corresponds to dense forest (78.2%), mostly located in the Amazon and Pacific regions, followed by natural and artificial grasslands (18.4%) with a large representation in the Orinoco, and open forest and coastal swamps with the lowest representation with 0.18% and 0.02%, respectively (Fig 2B).

Fig 2. Distribution of remnant habitat patches for jaguars in Colombia.

Fig 2

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(A) Remnant patches classified by size and (B) remnant patches classified by land-cover type. Elevation data obtained from WorldClim2 [71].

Functional connectivity network definition

We identified 960 potential corridors between the remnant habitat patches (Fig 3). Of the 497 patches, 439 (88.3%) had at least one corridor, resulting in 58 core habitats isolated. Corridors mean length distance (±SD) was 12.43±19.39 km, ranging from 0.31 to 124.93 km (Fig 3) between core habitat patches. Andean and Caribbean regions showed the largest number of corridors identified and the longest distances (Fig 3). Mean (±SD) number of corridors between patches was 2.19±1.68, with a maximum of 24 corridors for a single remnant patch. Centrality values for all remnant patches varied considerably, with a mean (±SD) value of 5962.31±7378.13, and a maximum value of 45043.7 (Fig 3).

Fig 3. Potential jaguar corridors distribution in Colombia.

Fig 3

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Corridors depicted as least cost path corridors (LCP) classified by length and centrality value (the importance of each patch within the connectivity network) of each remnant patch. Elevation data obtained from WorldClim2 [71].

Selection of jaguar priority areas in Colombia

Our methodological approximation allowed us to identify jaguar priority conservation areas (JPCA) and jaguar priority recovery areas (JPRA; Fig 4) based on four criteria: mean (±SD) patch size was 1258.6±10264.45 km2, where small patches were more frequent; centrality values showed a mean (±SD) index of 5962.31±7378.13; mean (±SD) number of “natural” (<15) HFI pixels was 11130±99946.08, while mean (±SD) proportion of natural pixels was 0.32±0.35; and, total area protected was 137559.31 km2, representing 22% of the total area of remnant patches (Fig 5). The Amazon region had the most significant proportion of the total protected area (70.11%), followed by the Andean (13.11%), Orinoco (9.60%), Caribbean (3.65%) and, Pacific (3.53%) regions (Fig 5). Of the total 497 patches, only 188 (37.8%) have any level of protection, 34 patches (predominantly of small size) had 90–100% of their area protected, and the largest remnant patches (196465.8 and 74583.3 km2) have only 35.1 and 20.4% of its area under protection respectively.

Fig 4. Distribution of jaguar priority conservation areas for conservation and jaguar priority recovery areas in Colombia.

Fig 4

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Priority areas for the conservation type I (JPCA I) and type II (JPCA II), and priority recovery areas type I (JPRA I) and type II (JPRA II). Elevation data obtained from WorldClim2 [71].

Fig 5. Protected areas of Colombia within the remnant patches of the jaguar.

Fig 5

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Our prioritization portfolio comprised 34 JPCAs and 463 JPRAs occupying a total area of 560047.06 km2 and 65485.41 km2 respectively. Of these JPCAs, 15 were JPCA II and 19 JPCA I, predominantly found in the Amazon and Orinoco regions (Fig 4). On the other hand, from the JPRAs identified, 377 were JPRA II and 86 JPRA I, with JPRA II mainly located in the Caribbean region and the Andes piedmont, while JPRA I meanly located in the Orinoco region and the inter-Andean valleys of Central Colombia (Fig 4).

Discussion

Our results indicated that jaguar potential distribution covered a large portion of the Colombian territory (96.62%), however, and due to habitat loss and fragmentation, currently only 56.71% of its distribution corresponds to potential habitat for the species, indicating a reduction of 43.29%, a value 4.29% larger than the reported in other studies [23]. Although it is not possible to know an exact time-frame in which this reduction occurred, previous works suggest that, considering regional heterogeneity, at least 60% of natural covers have disappeared in the last 400 years [3], but it is estimated that since the 1970´s, human influence, namely human footprint, has increased in at least 50% [84]. Though, compared to the potential distribution reported in previous studies [32] our distribution was 227 284.43 km2 greater, which may be due to the fact that in this study the elevation range was considered from 0–3200 m, while previous studies considered 0–2000 m [23, 32].

Although the Amazon and Orinoco regions hold the largest remaining habitat extensions for the species, both also face drastic landscape transformations due to persistent human encroachment that have increased in recent years [84]. According to our results, these regions harbor the largest remaining patches with lower human influence and with the largest contribution to national connectivity, thus representing the most important JPCAs in the country. Even though these areas are largely consistent with the Jaguar Conservation Units (JCU) proposed in previous studies [31], our JPCAs incorporate transformation processes, indicating not only the importance of these areas but also their status and are supported on a criteria-based systematic approach that allows monitoring and designing appropriate conservation actions. It is important to highlight that the Orinoco region also hold areas with JPRAs I towards the Andes piedmont, which correspond to areas with historically high human footprint [84].

Comparatively, the Andean region also harbors important and considerably large remaining patches, mostly towards the southern portion of the region, while smaller and isolated patches dominate the northern and central portions of the most populated region in the country. These patches are immersed in highly transformed landscapes, generated by historical population growth, urban settlement concentration, inadequate land use, and large-scale historical expansion of illicit crops [96, 97]. Additionally, the region has JPCAs I and II in the Serranía de San Lucas, the Catatumbo and, the upper Magdalena, which represent areas with historical jaguar presence [8, 31]. For instance, the Catatumbo JPCA II has been identified as an important area for jaguar populations [8], considering its central importance for the connectivity between the Orinoco and Caribbean regions [31]. Meanwhile, Serranía de San Lucas JPCA I has been previously identified as an area of great importance for connecting populations between north and south of the country [32, 98].

The Pacific region, although still retains an important proportion of ecosystems [97], it was identified as the second region with less potential habitat for the species. This might be explained by intensive deforestation processes within the region, mostly associated with illegal mining and wood exploitation [97, 99]. Nevertheless, this region is still an important area for jaguar conservation as shown herein, with important JPCAs and JPRAs all over the territory, consistent with previous conservation approaches [8, 23, 31, 41]. However, it seems the number of jaguars hunted have recently increased exponentially in the region [54] and human-jaguar conflicts have also growth considerably [25]; previous efforts have emphasized the need for conflict assessments and mitigation in the area [21, 100]. Notwithstanding, still these conservation areas are of critical importance for the country, but especially for the continent since they represent the connection between South and Central American populations [8, 25].

Finally, the Caribbean region has the smallest extent of potential habitat in the country, as a result of historical and intensive human production activities (i.e., agricultural and cattle expansion) and the proliferation of human settlements across the region [84, 101]. Nevertheless, still, important habitat patches remain in Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (SNSM) and Paramillo National Natural Parks, although most of them isolated, thus reducing potential jaguar dispersion [102]. SNSM has one JPCA II and one JPRA II that should be considered as recovery areas since it is known the area still harbors a jaguar population [8] and have active conservation actions and interesting market-based incentive programs (i.e., Jaguar Friendly). However, given the high transformation of the region [103], connectivity with other core habitats is practically null, which therefore affects genetic connectivity and hence increases the risk of local and regional extinctions, as previously suggested [20, 104]. In the case of Paramillo JPCA I, it is a protected area considered critical for ensuring the connectivity between the Caribbean and Pacific regions [20], and also as part of the continuum between Central and South America. Large scale and intensive conservation actions are urgently needed, especially by governmental institutions [70], for preserving the species and reducing current habitat transformation rates in the region.

Our study represents the first systematic approach proposing a connectivity network between remaining core habitat patches at national level. Previous efforts proposed 13 corridors between JCUs [31], however, our spatially-explicit approach further identifies 960 additional corridors distributed mainly in the Andean and Caribbean regions, which means a much more significant challenge for the species protection in Colombia than previously thought. For instance, corridors within the Andean region are critical for connecting the Amazon and Orinoco with the Pacific and Caribbean regions, but these corridors are of special concern considering they are immersed in highly transformed landscapes with high human densities [31, 96]. Additionally, a large proportion of corridors are located along the Magdalena River Basin, one of the country’s most important rivers [105], but also one of the most complicated and conflictive areas in Colombia. However, mobilizing communities around the benefits provided by the river together with the creation of conservation strategies and actions can represent a unique opportunity of combining conservation and development goals framed in the most important watershed of the country [106].

Our prioritization portfolio also allowed us to identify priority areas for jaguar recovery and conservation. JPCAs are important for the long-term maintenance of the species due to their large size, low HFI and high potential for connectivity. For example, JPCAs I from the Amazon, Orinoco, Pacific, and Serrania of San Lucas regions represent areas large enough for maintaining viable populations of >50 individuals [29], which have been previously identified [8], making them among the most important areas for ensuring not only jaguar but other species survival for the long term [20, 23]. On the other hand, the JPRAs require more significant conservation attention since most correspond to historical habitat for jaguars, but are currently under severe anthropic pressure and are most likely isolated, such as SNSM [70]. Considering connectivity therefore seems warranted as a long-term strategy for the preservation of more isolated populations [28] and thus for the maintenance of healthy jaguar populations in the country. Even though small-sized JPRAs are not large enough to host jaguar populations, they are supremely important in this conservation framework, since they might function as steppingstones [29] for long-range dispersal between larger suitable areas [107].

Given the importance of JPCAs and JPRAs for the conservation and recovery of the species, these areas should be explicitly considered in territorial planning; interesting examples exist for instance in Santa Marta territorial planning which incorporated jaguar habitats as part of the municipality’s environmental determinants [70]. Furthermore, these areas should be included in the planning for new protected areas, restoration portfolios, compensation schemes and incentives such as ecosystem services, market-based schemes, among others [97, 108, 109]. For instance, the Jaguar Friendly initiative is a market-based incentive program that certifies production units that directly contribute to jaguar conservation in human-dominated landscapes, thus articulating conservation and development and promoting coexistence, and with very promising results in cacao, coffee and forestry plantations in Costa Rica, Colombia and Venezuela [110]. Finally, a comprehensive strategy that incorporates the maintenance and expansion of suitable habitats [102] and securing individuals’ mobility and dispersal and the consequent genetic diversity [24, 111], while reducing hunting, conflict, traffic and other population pressures, will considerably contribute to reducing the overall extinction risk of the species [24]. Lastly, jaguar conservation is a national challenge that requires the commitment of society as a whole, and safeguarding the species could serve as the best indicator and signal that the country has hope for securing its most valuable asset: biodiversity.

Supporting information

S1 Table. Records used for species distribution modeling of Panthera onca in Colombia.

(DOCX)

pone.0300375.s001.docx (98KB, docx)
S2 Table. Models constructed for species distribution modeling and corresponding parameters for Panthera onca in Colombia.

(DOCX)

pone.0300375.s002.docx (29.5KB, docx)

Acknowledgments

This work was developed between ProCAT Colombia and Laboratorio de Ecología Funcional from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. We appreciate the support, comments and review from J. Nicolas Urbina, the support from LEF Lab mates and ProCAT Colombia staff and we thank J. Schipper for language editing and comments to the manuscript.

Data Availability

All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting information files and through Open Science Framework online repository (1. Gonzalez-Maya JF, Machado-Aguilera MC. Jaguar (Panthera onca) distribution records for Colombia. OSF; 2024. doi:10.17605/OSF.IO/RKDS9).

Funding Statement

The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

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Decision Letter 0

Dárius Pukenis Tubelis

3 Jan 2024

PONE-D-23-32228Preserving the spots of the land: Jaguar (Panthera onca) distribution and priority conservation areas in ColombiaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. González-Maya,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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Academic Editor

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“This work was partially funded and developed in ProCAT Colombia and Laboratorio de Ecología Funcional from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. We appreciate the support, comments and review from J. Nicolas Urbina-Cardona and Ginna Gomez-Junco, the support from Lab mates and ProCAT staff and the language editing and comments of Jan Schipper.”

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Additional Editor Comments:

Dear Dr José González-Maya,

Thank you for submitting your study for publication in PLOS ONE.

We have received two reviews that suggested "Minor Revision" for your submission.

Both reviewers considered your study as important, interesting and well done.

Reviewer 1 is mainly concerned with the lenght of the Introduction and Discussion, and with the number of figures.

I ask that you try to consider these and other questions presented by this reviewer, when you consider appropriate. His/her corrections are in an attached file.

Reviewer 2 also liked your study and present a few corrections, that you also can consider.

The text of your manuscript has some problems regarding the English and punctuation (mainly commas). Reviewers pointed out some mistakes, but it

would be good if you can ask the help of an Englich native speaker before submitting the corrected version of your manuscript.

Additionally, I ask that you try to follow my sugestions below. They involve formatting and other aspects of the submission.

Review by the Editor Dárius Tubelis:

Title.

"spots" is not a common term in the Landscape Ecology literature. Why not "remnants" ?

Abstract.

Introduction.

I do not consider that the Introduction is too long, as pointed out by R1. Its lenght and content are appropriate.

Line 75. For sure, start a new sentence for the objectives - "....Colombia. The objectives of this study....".

Material and Methods

Line 106 ahead. I would appreciate a paragraph, or some sentences, in which you provide information on the system of protected

areas found in Colombia. How many reserves occur ? What is the territorial extension that they protect in total , and in each ecoregion? Basic information on this aspect

of the country would be welcome here in this section, as you discuss about this later.

Line 155. "fragmented forest" could be any of these 3 forest ypes....

Lines 157 to 160. Something is wrong with the writing. It appears to have a contradiction here.

Lines 227-228. This is important, but did you mention this in the objectives and methods ?

Line 229. This caption appears to be too short. There is nothing more to add ? maybe: ...based on...

Also, this caption is there but where have you cited Fig 2 along the text ? I did not find. Please check this.

Line 245. The caption is there, but where did you cite Fig 3 along the text ? I could not find it.

Line 259. Again for Fig 4. An "Error!" appeared some times along the last paragraphs. Maybe, this refer to your figure citations ? If so, this error

was done during the pdf creation. Please check your text.

Discussion.

You will make the reading easier if you create sub-sections with sub-titles along the Discussion. This would help to avoid eventual

repetitions, and reduce its lenght. Six pages it a bit long. Please try to reduce it a bit, as also suggested by R1.

Conclusion.

Please review it to avoid repeating parts of the Discussion. Maybe you can make it shorter.

References

They appear to be ok, but please make a last check before sending the corrected version of your manuscript.

Line 681. The words should not be with intials in capitals. Please check this aspect for all refs.

Lines 789-790. Is the common name correct ? Also, scientific names in itlalics.

Line 799. brackets not in italics.

Figures.

Would it be possible to combine figures 1 and 2 in only one ? Figure 2 appears to bring little information, and the map is "clean" (it could have major cities, major rivers, etc..and/or this info of Fig 1).

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

********** 

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

********** 

3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

********** 

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

********** 

5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Minor changes and improvements in English are needed. Cut back in length especially Intro and Discussion and delete Conclusions. Some English review is suggested and tightening the writing. Some highlights suggested at the end in Discussion to enhance the potential and applicability of the paper. I am sure the authors will resolve all of these without much difficulty. Please see the attached document with additional suggestions and comments.

Reviewer #2: Dear authors and editors,

Thank you for approaching me to review this paper. The authors developed a jaguar distribution map and determined potentially important areas for its conservation (corridors and patches) to inform conservation planning. I think the methods and science behind it are good and the information is an important contribution to jaguar conservation. I think the paper can be published as it is. However, there are some issues with the writing and style which I recommend reviewing critically. I have suggested a few points below but encourage the authors to do a careful inspection of these issues throughout the manuscript.

Below are other general comments for the authors to reflect on.

1. In line 111, it would be good to clearly state what the “primary sources” were. The authors only mention an example, but a clear list of what these sources were would be useful. For example, we are not sure whether this includes records of predation events or hunting events. Were these records considered in the models? Panthera has collected good records of predation and hunting events in Colombia in case authors would find this useful. This is not a requirement for publication, but I take the opportunity to respectfully mention this for future consideration.

2. Would it be possible to elaborate a bit more on the two criteria used for filtering the data? It is clear that the authors used two filters (credibility and geographic precision), but it is not straightforward to understand when a record is deemed as low, medium or high. This is just a matter of perhaps adding a parenthesis or something like that just for the sake of clarity.

3. Line 170: seems like the word should be “die” not “died”

4. There is regularly an error message in the ms stating that “Error! Reference source not found” This must be a cross reference or something similar, so please check this error for publication.

5. Line 310, change “comma” for a period in “. For example,”.

6. Line 321: correct the typo in “meanly” for “mainly”.

7. Line 367: correct the typo in “reduces” for “reduce”.

8. Line 402: correct typo in “taken”.

9. Lines 417-422: organize ideas, maybe split into a couple of sentences for better understanding.

10. Line 420: correct typo in "meanly”.

11. Line 426, delete the comma.

12. Line 427-428: check flow, correct (e.g. period is not correctly used).

13. Line 432: avoid shortening words (spell out “That´s”).

14. Line 441: delete “in this way”, this is a new paragraph no need for this link.

15. Line 460: delete “a”.

16. Line 461: correct type “meanly”.

Congratulations!

********** 

6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Lain E. Pardo

**********

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While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Attachment

Submitted filename: Review of MS 32228 PLOSONE .docx

pone.0300375.s004.docx (14.4KB, docx)
PLoS One. 2024 Mar 22;19(3):e0300375. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0300375.r003

Author response to Decision Letter 0

18 Feb 2024

Responses to reviewers

Journal requirements:

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf

R/ We double checked and adjusted accordingly.

2. Note from Emily Chenette, Editor in Chief of PLOS ONE, and Iain Hrynaszkiewicz, Director of Open Research Solutions at PLOS: Did you know that depositing data in a repository is associated with up to a 25% citation advantage (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230416)? If you’ve not already done so, consider depositing your raw data in a repository to ensure your work is read, appreciated and cited by the largest possible audience. You’ll also earn an Accessible Data icon on your published paper if you deposit your data in any participating repository (https://plos.org/open-science/open-data/#accessible-data).

R/ We added our data to OSF as open access, and we added the text to the manuscript. Thanks for the suggestion.

1. Gonzalez-Maya JF, Machado-Aguilera MC. Jaguar (Panthera onca) distribution records for Colombia. OSF; 2024. doi:10.17605/OSF.IO/RKDS9

3. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match.

When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section.

R/ Sorry for the confusion. There was not specific funding or grants associated to the project but it was hosted at the institutions mentioned in the text. We fixed on the submission system.

4. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript:

“This work was partially funded and developed in ProCAT Colombia and Laboratorio de Ecología Funcional from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. We appreciate the support, comments and review from J. Nicolas Urbina-Cardona and Ginna Gomez-Junco, the support from Lab mates and ProCAT staff and the language editing and comments of Jan Schipper.”

We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form.

Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows:

“The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.”

Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

R/ Thanks for the comment, we will keep the Statement as it is, and removed from the MS the funding information. Thanks for raising the comment.

5. We note that Figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 in your submission contain [map/satellite] images which may be copyrighted. All PLOS content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which means that the manuscript, images, and Supporting Information files will be freely available online, and any third party is permitted to access, download, copy, distribute, and use these materials in any way, even commercially, with proper attribution. For these reasons, we cannot publish previously copyrighted maps or satellite images created using proprietary data, such as Google software (Google Maps, Street View, and Earth). For more information, see our copyright guidelines: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/licenses-and-copyright.

We require you to either (1) present written permission from the copyright holder to publish these figures specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license, or (2) remove the figures from your submission:

1. You may seek permission from the original copyright holder of Figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 to publish the content specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license.

We recommend that you contact the original copyright holder with the Content Permission Form (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=7c09/content-permission-form.pdf) and the following text:

“I request permission for the open-access journal PLOS ONE to publish XXX under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CCAL) CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Please be aware that this license allows unrestricted use and distribution, even commercially, by third parties. Please reply and provide explicit written permission to publish XXX under a CC BY license and complete the attached form.”

Please upload the completed Content Permission Form or other proof of granted permissions as an "Other" file with your submission.

In the figure caption of the copyrighted figure, please include the following text: “Reprinted from [ref] under a CC BY license, with permission from [name of publisher], original copyright [original copyright year].”

2. If you are unable to obtain permission from the original copyright holder to publish these figures under the CC BY 4.0 license or if the copyright holder’s requirements are incompatible with the CC BY 4.0 license, please either i) remove the figure or ii) supply a replacement figure that complies with the CC BY 4.0 license. Please check copyright information on all replacement figures and update the figure caption with source information. If applicable, please specify in the figure caption text when a figure is similar but not identical to the original image and is therefore for illustrative purposes only.

The following resources for replacing copyrighted map figures may be helpful:

USGS National Map Viewer (public domain): http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/viewer/

The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth (public domain): http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/clickmap/

Maps at the CIA (public domain): https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html and https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/cia-maps-publications/index.html

NASA Earth Observatory (public domain): http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/

Landsat: http://landsat.visibleearth.nasa.gov/

USGS EROS (Earth Resources Observatory and Science (EROS) Center) (public domain): http://eros.usgs.gov/#

Natural Earth (public domain): http://www.naturalearthdata.com/

R/ Thanks for the comment. We double checked and used available public spatial data from worldclim2 and Vector Map Level 0, both which are open access and compatible with CC BY 4.0 license as states in their webpage (License. The data are freely available for academic use and other non-commercial use…. Using the data to create maps for publishing of academic research articles is allowed. Thus you can use the maps you made with WorldClim data for figures in articles published by PLoS, Springer Nature, Elsevier, MDPI, etc. You are allowed (but not required) to publish these articles (and the maps they contain) under an open license such as CC-BY as is the case with PLoS journals and may be the case with other open access articles.). We added the corresponding citation to each figure.

6. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

R: / We double checked the reference list and replaced and added some additional references related to the reviewers’ comments.

Reviewer 1

This paper is a comprehensive analysis of the connectivity in jaguar habitat in Colombia, a welcome addition to the urgently needed body of knowledge about this species to secure its future. I find the paper reasonably well-written, although I would recommend tighten the text overall by about 20%, and I would also suggest ensuring proper English language use. Starting with the title, the phrase “Preserving the spots of the land” does not make much sense idiomatically. The land does not have spots as such. I would recommend something like “Preserving the spots and claws: Jaguar….” Or similar

R: / We significantly reduced the lenght and tighten the text. Thanks for suggestions with the title, and although it is clear that we are not pretending to use spots as a land feature literally, we would like to maintain the game of words, where spots reflect a relationship with jaguars but also connects with spots as a reference (“a particular place, area, or part” Merriam-Webster), therefore making an analogy for jaguar spots to reflect the texture of the land. However, we changed the title to only “Preserving the spots”.

Line 52: Says: “Its large habitat and prey requirements” but I believe the authors mean something like “its requirements of extensive areas of forest and availability of large prey” or something like that, although some studies have shown that jaguars can survive in relatively small areas and feed on relatively small prey (Miranda et al 2016 J. Nat. Hist., Harmsen et al. 2011, Mamm Biol). Please resolve

R: / We adjusted the writing, including the consideration of the rteviewer.

Variously, authors overuse the word “the”

R/ Corrected.

Line 227-228: Please expand the discussion about the category and status of the 15% protected territory

R: / Details added.

Line 252: How do you justify that a distance of merely 0.31 km is sufficient to classify an independent corridor from others? What is your benchmark for this and why?

R/ We believe the text was misinterpreted. We are referring to the minimum length of a corridor identified. We changed the text to avoid the problem.

Line 297: You say that jaguar occupied distribution has shrunk by 43%. In how much time? Since when? Any chances you can illustrate the speed of decline?

R/ This is a very interesting observation and suggestion, although it is not possible to know the exact time frame in which the reduction occurred, due to the lack of references layers for it< nevertheless, we added a couple sources to try to provide a perspective on the subject.

Lines 292-456: The discussion is extremely and unjustifiably long. Please reduce by 40%

R/ We made the best effort to reduce it as much as possible without compromising its cohesion.

Lines 457-478: Conclusions read like a selected repeat of the discussion. If no justification, please delete.

R/ Thanks for pointing it out, effectively, we deleted the conclusion to avoid repetition.

I see no need for Figure 1, which is generic and can be found elsewhere. I also believe that there may be too many maps. Can you condense into only 4 or 5?

R/ Eliminated.

The authors refer to habitat destruction as the main threat to jaguars. Other authors have identified direct killing and conflict with humans as the main threats, given that jaguars are known to be able to survive in suboptimal habitat if they are not hunted. I would like to see a bit of discussion regarding the synergy that these threats combine and what is the status of the other two. Preserving only the habitat may not be sufficient to secure jaguar populations, as per the empty forest paradigm and others. Please comment

R/We added comments related to the subject for addressing the comment.

Also, I believe it would be important for the authors to weigh in in the discrepancy between IUCN enlisting the species as NT, while Colombia (and many other countries) enlist the species as VU or even EN. Do the authors agree with IUCN? They only state the status of the species in IUCN and in Colombia with no other comment.

R/ Although we appreciate the comment, and indeed we believe it is an interesting (and already long) discussion, it is not the aim or scope of our manuscript, and it is only mentioned as context in the first part of the introduction. Furthermore, we do not provide any new information for the total range of the species so we could provide a new perspective or new insights into the discussion, thus it is not covered by our approach. Nevertheless, we added some details on the status of the populations at continental scale to expand the conservation status context.

Reviewer 2

Title.

"spots" is not a common term in the Landscape Ecology literature. Why not "remnants" ?

Abstract.

R/ Thanks for the comment, we would prefer to maintain the game of words, although remnants is the proper literal term. We agree “spots” is not a common term in Landscape Ecology, but is not the intended use for an appealing title. However, we changed the title to only “Preserving the spots”.

Introduction.

I do not consider that the Introduction is too long, as pointed out by R1. Its lenght and content are appropriate.

R/ Thanks for the comment!

Line 75. For sure, start a new sentence for the objectives - "....Colombia. The objectives of this study....".

R/ Changed.

Material and Methods

Line 106 ahead. I would appreciate a paragraph, or some sentences, in which you provide information on the system of protected areas found in Colombia. How many reserves occur ? What is the territorial extension that they protect in total , and in each ecoregion? Basic information on this aspect of the country would be welcome here in this section, as you discuss about this later.

R/ Details added, thanks for the comment.

Line 155. "fragmented forest" could be any of these 3 forest ypes....

R/ Thanks for the comment. We are conscious that fragmented forest could include the other forest types, nevertheless, in the national land cover deataset there is a specific class for fragmented forest, reason why we included it.

Lines 157 to 160. Something is wrong with the writing. It appears to have a contradiction here.

R/ Thanks, we reworded for clarity.

Lines 227-228. This is important, but did you mention this in the objectives and methods ?

R/ Thanks for pointing out the omission, we added the estimation to the methods section.

Line 229. This caption appears to be too short. There is nothing more to add ? maybe: ...based on...

R/ We added some more details to the caption.

Also, this caption is there but where have you cited Fig 2 along the text ? I did not find. Please check this.

R: / Corrected.

Line 245. The caption is there, but where did you cite Fig 3 along the text ? I could not find it.

R: / Corrected.

Line 259. Again for Fig 4. An "Error!" appeared some times along the last paragraphs. Maybe, this refer to your figure citations ? If so, this error was done during the pdf creation. Please check your text.

R: / Corrected.

Discussion.

You will make the reading easier if you create sub-sections with sub-titles along the Discussion. This would help to avoid eventual repetitions, and reduce its lenght. Six pages it a bit long. Please try to reduce it a bit, as also suggested by R1.

R: / Thanks for the comment; we reduced the length of the discussion considerably, therefore we think dividing in subsections is no longer needed and would fragment the discussion unnecessarily.

Conclusion.

Please review it to avoid repeating parts of the Discussion. Maybe you can make it shorter.

R: / Completely agree, we deleted the whole section.

References

They appear to be ok, but please make a last check before sending the corrected version of your manuscript.

R: / We double checked all the references.

Line 681. The words should not be with intials in capitals. Please check this aspect for all refs.

R: / Corrected.

Lines 789-790. Is the common name correct ? Also, scientific names in itlalics.

R: / Corrected.

Line 799. brackets not in italics.

R: / Corrected

Figures.

Would it be possible to combine figures 1 and 2 in only one ? Figure 2 appears to bring little information, and the map is "clean" (it could have major cities, major rivers, etc..and/or this info of Fig 1).

R/ Thanks for suggestion, we followed it.

General Comments

In line 111, it would be good to clearly state what the “primary sources” were. The authors only mention an example, but a clear list of what these sources were would be useful. For example, we are not sure whether this includes records of predation events or hunting events. Were these records considered in the models? Panthera has collected good records of predation and hunting events in Colombia in case authors would find this useful. This is not a requirement for publication, but I take the opportunity to respectfully mention this for future consideration.

R: / Thanks for the comment and we appreciate the offering. Undoubtedly, this information would be super useful in future approaches; nevertheless, for our modeling approach we used validated records collected by the authors throughout the years. We changed the text to make it clearer: "3) our own data derived from validated records of direct observations, camera-trap data, and predation events with confirmation of the predator, among other."

Would it be possible to elaborate a bit more on the two criteria used for filtering the data? It is clear that the authors used two filters (credibility and geographic precision), but it is not straightforward to understand when a record is deemed as low, medium or high. This is just a matter of perhaps adding a parenthesis or something like that just for the sake of clarity.

R/ Details added.

Line 170: seems like the word should be “die” not “died”

R/ Corrected.

There is regularly an error message in the ms stating that “Error! Reference source not found” This must be a cross reference or something similar, so please check this error for publication.

R/ Corrected.

Line 310, change “comma” for a period in “. For example,”.

R/ Corrected.

Line 321: correct the typo in “meanly” for “mainly”.

R/ Corrected.

Line 367: correct the typo in “reduces” for “reduce”.

R/ Corrected.

Line 402: correct typo in “taken”.

R/ Corrected.

Lines 417-422: organize ideas, maybe split into a couple of sentences for better understanding.

R/ Corrected.

Line 420: correct typo in "meanly”.

R/ Corrected.

Line 426, delete the comma.

R/ Corrected.

Line 427-428: check flow, correct (e.g. period is not correctly used).

R/ Corrected.

Line 432: avoid shortening words (spell out “That´s”).

R/ Corrected.

Line 441: delete “in this way”, this is a new paragraph no need for this link.

R/ Corrected.

15. Line 460: delete “a”.

R/ Corrected.

16. Line 461: correct type “meanly”.

R/ Corrected.

Decision Letter 1

Dárius Pukenis Tubelis

27 Feb 2024

Preserving the spots: Jaguar (Panthera onca) distribution and priority conservation areas in Colombia

PONE-D-23-32228R1

Dear Dr. González-Maya,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Dárius Pukenis Tubelis, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments:

Dear Dr González-Maya,

Thank for submtting the corrected version of your manuscript on the Jaguar in Colombia (PONE-D-23-32228R1).

I have appreciated your responses to revieweres and the changes done.

With this, your manuscript was improved, and I now consider that it can be accepted for publication in PLOS ONE.

In my last reading, I found a range of minor mistakes that have to be fixed.

Please do so during the proofs correction, or another final stage of the evaluation process.

These mistakes/problems are:

Please check again if your affiliations are correct and according to the Guidelines.

Line 40. JPCA and JPRA are not appropriate as keywords, as they could mean different things in other countries or studies. Please replace them by

words such as the family name and "forest". Also, Jaguar is repetitive; consider "corridor".

Introduction

Here and along the text, there should be a space between the numbers of references: example [2, 3] instead of [2,3]. Please fix this along the ms.

Line 53. This reference [19] is wrongly placed. You should cite the number [8] here, as the previous reference was [7].

You have to change the position of ref 19 in the References Section, and change all posterior numbers along the text and in the References section. Be carefull !!

Accordingly, the references in line 55 would need to be [9, 10]. And so on...

Methods

Line 136. Is "(M)" wright here ? It sounds strange. Please check this.

Line 151. it is better to replace "&" by "and". The same for line 152.

Line 180. Change to "we used".

Line 196. Change to [91, 93]. Join them.

Line 203. ranges??

Lines 208 to 214. You were using values (e.g. "3") and now you use words (e.g. four). It is correct ? Please change for uniformity.

Results

Table 2. Consider writing "Max" in full (Bio5).

Line 245. Change to "had sizes".

Lines 270, 271. Some problem with the figure citation here.

Discussion

Line 302. Change to "have disappeared".

References

You are using the DOIs in a wrong way. The correct is "https://doi.org/numbers and letters". Please check the Guidelines and recent issues.

Some DOIs are missing....

Figure 5. Some numbers are overlapped in the scale.

That is all.

If you fix this, you article likely will be accepted in definitive.

You have produced an interesting and important paper.

Thank you for considering PLOS ONE as home of your research.

Dárius Tubelis

Acceptance letter

Dárius Pukenis Tubelis

13 Mar 2024

PONE-D-23-32228R1

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. González-Maya,

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team.

At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following:

* All references, tables, and figures are properly cited

* All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission,

* There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset

If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps.

Lastly, if your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

If we can help with anything else, please email us at customercare@plos.org.

Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access.

Kind regards,

PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff

on behalf of

Dr. Dárius Pukenis Tubelis

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Associated Data

    This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

    Supplementary Materials

    S1 Table. Records used for species distribution modeling of Panthera onca in Colombia.

    (DOCX)

    pone.0300375.s001.docx (98KB, docx)
    S2 Table. Models constructed for species distribution modeling and corresponding parameters for Panthera onca in Colombia.

    (DOCX)

    pone.0300375.s002.docx (29.5KB, docx)
    Attachment

    Submitted filename: Rebutal_letter_Machado-Aguilera et al.doc

    pone.0300375.s003.doc (1.9MB, doc)
    Attachment

    Submitted filename: Review of MS 32228 PLOSONE .docx

    pone.0300375.s004.docx (14.4KB, docx)

    Data Availability Statement

    All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting information files and through Open Science Framework online repository (1. Gonzalez-Maya JF, Machado-Aguilera MC. Jaguar (Panthera onca) distribution records for Colombia. OSF; 2024. doi:10.17605/OSF.IO/RKDS9).

    Articles from PLOS ONE are provided here courtesy of PLOS

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