Does Land Cover Influence the Spatial Distribution of Reservoir Rodent Necromys Lasiurus?

Abstract

The rodent Necromys lasiurus (Rodentia, Sigmodontinae) is considered to be the main hantavirus reservoir in the Brazilian Cerrado biome. Significant changes to the landscape of this biome have occurred in recent decades. Considering the fact that change in land use patterns can influence species distribution and, as a result, the emergence of diseases, this study sought to analyze the potential geographic distribution of the species N. lasiurus and to understand how land use and occupation contribute to the distribution of this species. Using Ecological Niche Modeling (ENM), environmental suitability models were constructed for N. lasiurus. The Maxent algorithm was used with predictor variables indicated by the results of the jackknife technique. Test accuracy was evaluated using the area under the curve (AUC). The differences in the potential distribution models resulting from the inclusion or exclusion of land use as a variable were not random (p < 0.0001). The jackknife method indicated that the variables referred to as percentage of vegetation cover and land use are the strongest predictive models (38.9% and 37.9%, respectively). The AUC evaluation indicated good performance (0.93 and 0.92). When inserted into the model, the variables land use and vegetation cover were found to significantly influence potential N. lasiurus distribution. These variables should be considered when predicting the occurrence of this medically important rodent.

Necromys lasiurus: Lessons From a 38-Year Study in an Amazonian Savanna

“…In Amazonia, the species is found in savanna vegetation (Ghizoni et al, 2005) and in the Atlantic Forest it is often found in agroecosystems (Gheler-Costa et al, 2012). Santos et al (2018) and Malange et al (2016) noted that crops and pastures have favored the expansion of the species in the Atlantic Forest, and human-modified environments are associated with the occurrence of the species in all Brazilian domains (Santos et al, 2017).…”

“…Necromys lasiurus is considered to be one of the main hantavirus reservoirs in Brazil (Oliveira et al, 2013;Santos et al, 2017), and hence surveillance of its populations is of important. This species shows abrupt density fluctuations, and changes from extremely common to rare between seasons or years (Souza and Alho, 1980).…”

Ocorrência E Distribuição Potencial De Pyroderus Scutatus (Aves: Cotingidae) No Sul Do Brasil

“…Os registros de presença do P. scutatus foram delimitados, considerando o local exato e/ou centróide do município de sua ocorrência. Através da ferramenta Google Earth, foram coletados os pontos em coordenadas geográficas (latitude/longitude), no formato de graus decimais, Datum WGS-84 (OLIVEIRA et al, 2015;SANTOS et al, 2017).…”

OCCURRENCE AND PREDICTIVE DISTRIBUTION OF Crypturellus noctivagus (AVES, TINAMIDAE) IN BRAZIL

“…Among several predictive models, the MaxEnt (Maximum Entropy) algorithm allows to correlate the species occurrence to bioclimatic variables, and predict areas of environmental suitability for the species , Soberón 2007, Philips & Dudik 2008, Olivero et al 2016. It is also possible to insert environmental variables in the prediction, such as topography, forest vegetation (Rajão et al 2010, Oliveira et al 2015 and land use (Santos et al 2017).…”