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The jaguar (Panthera onca) is one of the most endangered felids in the world. Its distribution has been reduced by 50% globally, and the species continues to be hunted illegally. We provide data on jaguar abundance, sex ratio, seasonal and daily activity, and site fidelity in La Papalota-a 368-ha natural protected area in Nayarit, western Mexico. La Papalota is located between two areas with high priority for the conservation of the jaguar: Marismas Nacionales Biosphere Reserve and the San Blas-San Juan area. Over a period of 4,240 trap nights (14 months), we collected 130 independent photos of six different individuals (one adult male, three adult females, one subadult female, and one cub). Jaguars use La Papalota all year round, and we were able to document three pregnancies. We suggest that, although a small protected area like our study site cannot provide an entire home range for even a single jaguar, it and similar reserves can play a crucial role as stepping-stones for jaguars moving across highly modified landscapes.

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In most of the planet, large herbivore communities have been replaced by livestock, but this process is reversing in many places. Here, we outline and review the pathways of “megaherbivore rewilding transitions” in three social-ecological-systems of subtropical Argentina. In the extensive arid high-elevation Puna plateau we observed a “rapid rewilding pathway” where the reduction of livestock was accompanied by the recovery of native camelid populations from near extinction in a few decades. In the forest-grassland ecotone, decreasing livestock favored higher fire frequency, probably limiting the speed of native herbivore recovery in an “increasing fire pathway”. In lowland montane forests, the recovery of native herbivore communities appears to be lagged by fragmentation, local extinctions and human pressure, representing a case of “connectivity-limited rewilding”. These typologies exemplify the complexity of outcomes resulting from livestock diminishing density, and provide a framework to understand and optimize processes of large herbivore rewilding according to different social-ecological contexts.

Aims: High-Andean vegas are key functional wetlands in the Puna ecoregion. Plant communities in combination with ecogeographic characteristics determine their functional processes. In this study, we identified groups of vegas based on their plant composition and characterized these groups with spatial and spectral variables representing their ecogeographic context.Location: Argentine Puna and High-Andean ecoregions. Methods:We recorded the species composition and cover of plants in 50 vegas distributed along a ecogeographic gradient. We calculated six spatial and 14 spectral variables for each vega. We performed a correspondence analysis (CA) to explore species data and used the site's scores in a k-means analysis to identify groups of vegas.Then, we characterized each group of vegas with spatial and spectral variables with the v.test using the 'catdes' function in the FactoMineR package. Results:The CA showed five groups of vegas segregated by the plant species composition. Each group was related to different spatial and spectral variables showing an ecogeographic gradient. Vegas with Poaceas were located at higher altitude and lower latitude and longitude (Group 1, Festuca nardifolia and Deschampsia hackelii). Vegas dominated by cushion species had higher humidity (Group 2, Oxychloe andina), and higher and more stable productivity (Group 3, Eleocharis pseudoalbibracteata), while vegas with halophytic species were associated with a larger area, higher salinity, and lower humidity (Group 4, Amphiscirpus nevadensis), and lower productivity (Group 5, Lycium humile and Salicornia pulvinata). Conclusions:Our results are the first floristic classification and remote-sensing characterization of high-Andean vegas at a regional scale. This information shows the variation of these ecosystems and suggests that remote sensing, complemented with field information, could help to identify types of vegas at regional scales. This information is relevant for land planning and sustainable management of these key ecosystems in the context of threats of global change.

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