A (prairie) wolf at the door: What are the consequences for South American canids if coyotes shoot the Darién Gap?
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The coyote (Canis latrans) has greatly expanded its range in the past century, with expansion southward taking the species to the southern border of Panama and the doorstep of South America. The Darién Gap is a relatively intact swath of rainforest between coyotes and the South American continent. If coyotes disperse through the Darién Gap, they could have diverse effects on South American ecosystems, particularly on the endemic canid assemblage. Given the high levels of intraguild aggression among canid species, the establishment of a novel, relatively large, and more social canid species in South America could have marked effects on endemic canids. Utilizing coyote occurrence data from the GBIF database, we use a MaxEnt niche modeling approach with climatic and forest cover predictors to model the potential overlap of coyotes with native species based on published range extents of those species. We then incorporate forest-cover change to predict the effects of deforestation on habitat suitability for coyotes.
Niche models found 51% of the South American continent to be within the predicted suitable range of the coyote. Of the variables tested, the temperature of the coldest three months and percent forest cover were found to contribute most to the model. Coyotes detected in southern Panama in 2018 were approximately 200 km from a near-continuous block of suitable habitat through the Andes to Patagonia and the Cerrado. This highlights the importance of tracking the species’ progression southward, monitoring the northern extent of South American canid communities for effects of potential establishment of dispersing coyotes, and limiting deforestation in the Darién Gap to prevent expansion of coyotes southward.