Ecological niche models, fossil record and the multi-temporal calibration for Panthera onca (Linnaeus, 1758) (Mammalia: Felidae)

Ana Karolina Mendes Moreno and Matheus Souza Lima-Ribeiro

Abstract
Ecological niche modeling (ENM) has been used in large scale to identify locations with suitable environmental conditions for survival of a species in the geographical space. However, if training data do not identify the species' fundamental niche (e.g., in the case of species distribution is not currently in equilibrium with climate), ENMs may not reflect all appropriate locations it can survive, limiting or invalidating its general use in ecology. We predict that adding fossil data to the current species occurrence records, the called multi-temporal calibration approach, may improve the ENMs prediction by modeling a more complete suite of environmental conditions from species' fundamental niche, making them more robust and reliable. To test our prediction, we modeled the potential distribution of Panthera onca (Linnaeus, 1758) in New World using occurrence records from three subspecies (P. o. onca, P. o. mesembrina and P. o. augusta) and three time periods (Present, mid-Holocene and Last Glacial Maximum). Five different models were generated, the first with only current occurrence records, three others adding fossil data of P. o. mesembrina, P. o. augusta and P. o. onca, respectively, to the current data, and the last using all fossil and current data sets. Our findings support our prediction and show that fossil data improve the predictive ability of the models, informing complementary environmental conditions of species' fundamental niche and expanding its predicted potential distribution.

Keywords
Equilibrium species-climate, Fundamental niche, Fossil data, Last glacial maximum, Mid-Holocene.

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