Mauro Lucherini

• PhD in Zoology
• Investigador Principal CONICET at CONICET - Universidad Nacional del Sur

Livestock predation is one of the major causes of conflicts between humans and pumas (Puma concolor). Using data from interviews to ranchers and kill-site inspections, we characterized puma-livestock conflicts in Villarino and Patagones counties of central Argentinean rangelands. Depredation was considered the major cause of livestock losses, and p...

• Surplus killing (i.e. predation in which predators kill more prey than necessary to satiate their hunger) appears to be widespread in carnivores and has the potential to exacerbate human–carnivore conflict. Nevertheless, little is known about the frequency of surplus killing or about its impact on livestock. • We review the information available...

Loss of livestock is one of the greatest sources of conflict between humans and large felids worldwide. The puma Puma concolor is the most widespread apex predator in the Americas, and conflicts between this felid and humans are common throughout its geographical range. In response to predation on livestock, humans persecute and hunt pumas. We iden...

As an apex predator, pumas (Puma concolor) frequently enter into conflict with humans because of predation on livestock. We analyzed the association between puma predation and human tolerance in six agroecosystems of the Argentine Dry Chaco, a global deforestation hotspot. Specifically, we addressed attitudes and behaviors of local social actors to...

Human activities lead to declines in species’ abundance and diversity, as well as loss of habitat quality from overexploitation. The effects of livestock grazing increase on small felids are poorly understood, primarily due to the low detectability of these species. The grazing of domestic camelids, such as the llama (Lama glama) and the alpaca (Vi...

Las poblaciones de guanaco en Argentina sufrieron una drástica disminución durante el siglo XX que empezó a revertirse en los últimos 30 años. A pesar de esto, la provincia de Buenos Aires aún posee solamente pequeñas poblaciones relictuales en dos reservas naturales ubicadas al sudoeste de la provincia. Reportamos registros de dos nuevas posibles...

For the 2024 assessment, the Andean cat remains Endangered under Criteria C2a(i), as a continuous population decline is inferred, based on the decrease of sighting reports by local people and the increase of threats that lead to direct death of individuals, such as roadkills, retaliatory killings and dog attacks. The total population is estimated a...

Los pumas (Puma concolor) son principalmente nocturnos y crepusculares y, de acuerdo con la teoría de forrajeo óptimo, se espera que busquen alimento cuando los beneficios superen los costos. Esto sugiere que la luz ambiental y las fases lunares podrían influir en su comportamiento y, en consecuencia, sus patrones de actividad. OBJETIVO: Analizar...

El atropellamiento de fauna es uno de los factores más importantes de mortalidad no natural de vertebrados terrestres, que supera incluso a la caza furtiva. En Argentina, causa la muerte de diversas especies, incluyendo a felinos nativos como el gato montés (Leopardus geoffroyi) y el gato de los pajonales (L. pajeros). La campaña #lentoporlafauna l...

El problema del daño causado por perros (Canis lupus familiaris Linnaeus, 1758) sobre otros animales es cada vez más alarmante. Este estudio tiene como objetivo demostrar el ataque de cánidos domésticos a un rebaño de ovejas perteneciente a un agricultor en la región centro-norte de Argentina, utilizando tecnologías no invasivas. Se realizaron 2 vi...

Resumen El complejo del Leopardus colocolo, según una reciente actualización taxonómica, ha sido dividido en cinco especies. Una de estas es Leopardus braccatus conocida como gato del pantanal, distribuido en Bolivia, Brasil y Paraguay. A pesar de su distribución, esta es una especie poco estudiada. Presentamos aquí un nuevo registro de esta especi...

Puma-rancher conflicts are a major concern because of their negative effects on puma populations and their essential role in ecosystems. We summarize here the work we conducted in search for puma-rancher coexistence in the southern Espinal of central Argentina.

This note presents the first steps of the conservation actions implemented by the Geoffroy's Cat Working Group

Despite their importance for understanding consumer‐resource dynamics, the dietary responses of large terrestrial predators to variations in prey richness and competition pressure are unclear. While a greater predator selectivity along with increasing prey abundance would be expected under an optimal foraging scenario, there is some evidence that p...

IUCN Red List assessment of the conservation status for Leopardus jacobita

The global decline of terrestrial species is largely due to the degradation, loss and fragmentation of their habitats. The conversion of natural ecosystems for cropland, rangeland, forest products and human infrastructure are the primary causes of habitat deterioration. Due to the paucity of data on the past distribution of species and the scarcity...

The global decline of terrestrial species is largely due to the degradation, loss and fragmentation of their habitats. The conversion of natural ecosystems for cropland, rangeland, forest products and human infrastructure are the primary causes of habitat deterioration. Due to the paucity of data on the past distribution of species and the scarcity...

Conservation biology is a mission‐driven discipline that must navigate a new relationship between conservation and science. Because conservation is a social and political as well as an ecological project, conservation biologists must practice interdisciplinarity and collaboration. In a comparative study of 7 cases (Jaguars in the Chaco, Grevy's zeb...

This paper aims to characterise the modifications caused by the Pampas fox (Lycalopex gymnocercus) to the bones and teeth of its prey in the Espinal and Dry Chaco environments, in central Argentina. Plant remains, invertebrate remains, and vertebrate bones and teeth were recovered from a set of more than 180 faeces. From an actualistic perspective,...

Anthropogenic habitat modification is one of the most serious threats to global biodiversity, and in areas with a high urbanization level and agricultural activities, habitat loss and fragmentation are virtually inevitable. An example of this occurs in the Pampas grassland of Argentina, which is the most densely populated and most degraded region i...

Human-wildlife interactions can be negative when the needs and behavior of wildlife negatively influence human goals, or vice-versa, and management of these interactions may lead to conflict. Here, we review information on negative interactions between humans and wildlife in South America contained in 136 scientific publications, focusing on terres...

This article in Spanish (published in the Argentine NGO Pumakawa{s newsletter) summarizes what we have learnt in more than a decade of research on the conflict between livestock production and wild carnivores in the ranchlands of the southern Espinal, in the Argentine province of Buenos Aires.

The dynamics of an ecological system are closely related to the processes that occur in the adjacent environments. Consumers living in terrestrial habitats can take advantage of allochthonous resources that originate in highly productive aquatic environments and that may enable their populations to reach higher densities than those supported by lan...

The Pampas fox (Lycalopex gymnocercus) has suffered from hunting and human persecution for decades, both for fur trade or due to conflicts with livestock. However, studies assessing the effects of hunting pressure on this canid population ecology are lacking. In this work, we assessed the influence of several hunting-related variables on the daily...

Muñoa’s pampas cat (recently proposed to be a distinct species, Leopardus munoai) is a small felid that is endemic to the Uruguayan Savanna ecoregion (encompassing southern Brazil, north-eastern Argentina and Uruguay). Previous studies have suggested that it is threatened, but its conservation assessment has been hampered by the scarcity of data on...

Appendix A. Supplementary data Mammal species richness for each study area, sampling array (N° of stations), mean (±SD) trapping effort, and total trapping effort; maximum number of species per station (Max. N° Spp.), and presence (P) of the different registered species in the five sampled agroecosystems of the Argentine Dry Chaco

Habitat loss is a significant threat to biodiversity worldwide, and the Argentine Dry Chaco is one of the most active global deforestation hotspots. Medium‐large mammals are especially vulnerable to land‐cover change, and in the Dry Chaco, they are subjected to the combined effect of habitat loss and hunting. In agroecosystems, blocks of natural ha...

Understanding the food habits of mammalian carnivores is crucial for the comprehension of the role of apex-predators in maintaining healthy ecosystems. The puma is currently the most widespread top predator and the carnivore most frequently involved in conflicts with humans in the Americas. We analyzed puma diet in the South American temperate regi...

Land-sea interface is an ecotone where the intersection of marine and terrestrial ecosystems create unique ecological conditions for terrestrial mobile species and freshwater-adapted organisms to exploit marine-derived food resources. Mammalian carnivores play an important role in almost any ecosystem where they live due to their top-down (or tr...

Leopardus colocola (Molina, 1782) is a poorly known small felid distributed throughout a large portion of South America, reported as extinct in the Pampas of Argentina, and absent from a large portion of the Argentine Dry Chaco. We compile data from the field and national collections to report new occurrence records of this species from the Dry Cha...

• Animals should adapt their foraging habits, changing their dietary breadth in response to variation in the richness and availability of food resources. Understanding how species modify their dietary breadth according to variation in resource richness would support predictions of their responses to environmental changes that alter prey communities...

Land-sea interface is an ecotone where the intersection of marine and terrestrial ecosystems create unique ecological conditions for terrestrial mobile species and freshwater-adapted organisms to exploit marine-derived food resources. Mammalian carnivores play an important role in almost any ecosystem where they live due to their top-down (or troph...

Three protocols (Ketamine–Medetomidine, Ketamine–Xylazine and Ketamine–Medetomidine–Midazolam) were used to immobilize 2 sympatric wild cat species, the critically endangered Andean cat (Leopardus jacobita), and the relatively more common Pampas cat (L. colocolo), in the high Andes Mountains of Argentina between September 2011 and May 2016. Based o...

We describe the Andean Cat Alliance Catcrafts project for local community engagement.

The Dry Chaco is mostly known as a forested ecosystem. However it includes natural grasslands, savannas, scrublands, and wetlands. With one of the highest global deforestation rates in the last two decades and only 12% of the area protected, the concern about land-use change in this ecoregion has raised exponentially; but conservation initiatives d...

http://cma.sarem.org.ar/es/especie-nativa/puma-concolor

Geoffroy’s cat is a small Neotropical felid, seemingly abundant throughout most of its range and exhibiting considerable ecological plasticity. In Brazil, the species is restricted to the Pampas, one of the most threatened biomes in the country, where information on its ecology is scarce. Here we report the first assessments of its density, habitat...

Conservation status revision for the Argentine Red List of Endangered mammals

Conservation status revision for the Argentine Red List of Endangered mammals

Assessment of the conservation status for Argentina

Assessment of the conservation status for Argentina

Assessment of the conservation status for Argentina.

Because of the great diversity (28 species) and fragile conservation status (57.1% of species are in threat of extinction) of the terrestrial carnivores of Argentina, we aimed to collect information about the conservation efforts in this country and identify tools to improve their effectiveness through expert opinion. Lack of interest by government...

Habitat loss, poaching, and legal hunting are the main causes of decline in populations of pumas (Puma concolor) globally. We used camera trapping to assess the habitat use and daily activity patterns of pumas, and we identified the major factors affecting this species, in a human-dominated landscape in central Argentina. The intensity of habitat u...

We report data on the spatial ecology and habitat selection of eight adult Geoffroy's cat Leopardus geoffroyi (five males and three females) that were radiotracked in an area of the central Argentine Espinal. Mean home range size varied from 2.2 ± 1.9 km² (Kernel95%) to 2.8 ± 2.4 km² (MCP100%), with male home ranges 4.1 larger than those of females...

Because of the great diversity (28 species) and fragile conservation status (57.1% of species are in threat of extinction) of the terrestrial carnivores of Argentina, we aimed to collect information about the conservation efforts in this country and identify tools to improve their effectiveness through expert opinion. Lack of interest by government...

RESUMEN Debido a la gran diversidad (28 especies) y el delicado estado de conservación (57,1% de especies con amenaza de extinción) de los carnívoros terrestres en Argentina, nos propusimos recopilar información sobre los esfuerzos actuales de conservación en este país y, mediante consulta a expertos, identificar medidas para mejorar su eficacia. E...

El estudio de la dieta de grandes carnívoros en áreas de intenso conflicto con la ganadería, como es el caso del sur del Espinal para el puma, es importante para entender la relevancia de las especies silvestres y domésticas. En 2014-2016 se recolectaron 16 heces en los partidos de Patagones y Villarino (Provincia de Buenos Aires). La identificació...

Geoffroy’s cat (Leopardus geoffroyi) is a small Neotropical felid whose social behavior remains poorly understood. We used simultaneous radiotelemetry (4 males and 3 females) and camera trapping to examine the spatial structure and dynamics of a population of this species in the Brazilian pampas (part of the Uruguayan Savannah ecoregion), including...

Andean and Pampas cats are 2 Neotropical small felids of the genus Leopardus. Until now, most of the scarce morphometric data published for these felids, especially the rare Andean cat (L. jacobita), were obtained from museum skins and skulls of undetermined sex. Here, we present morphological data from Pampas cats (L. colocolo) and the largest sam...

Testing techniques for the mitigation of Pampas fox predation on livestock

Conditioned Taste Aversion as a tool for human-livestock conflict mitigation

The key role that wild carnivores play in ecosystems is threatened by human persecution and habitat alteration worldwide. The SW of Buenos Aires province, Argentina, is a region strongly modified by the spread of agriculture and where, in the last years, there has been an increase in carnivore predation on livestock. The simultaneous study of the e...

We report new occurrence records of Puma yagouaroundi (É. Geoffroy, 1803), a widely distributed but little known Neotropical carnivore, obtained over the last 10 years in Buenos Aires province, central Argentina. The records were collected by camera trapping surveys (n = 384 stations) and 195 interviews with local inhabitants. Our results improve o...

Se presenta el primer análisis sobre los conflictos entre humanos y dos especies de pequeños felinos, el gato andino (Leopardus jacobita) y gato del pajonal (Leopardus colocolo), sobre la base de 265 entrevistas realizadas a pobladores locales de 199 sitios ubicados entre 700 y 4.650 m s.n.m. en los Andes de Argentina, Bolivia, Chile y Perú. El 64,...

We investigated puma genetic diversity and population structure in Argentina, increasingly affected by habitat loss, using 40 puma samples including scats, dead animals and museum specimens.

Further comments on the use of interview-based data for species distribution studies: a reply to Petracca & Frair - N. Caruso, E. Luengos Vidal, M. Guerisoli, M. Lucherini

IUCN Red List reassessment of conservation status

DOWNLOAD this article in Blog Alex Bager (http://bab.empreendedor-academico.com.br/). To investigate the evolution and biogeography of an endemic group of South American foxes, we examined mitochondrial DNA control region sequences for 118 individuals belonging to all six extant species of the genus Lycalopex. Phylogenetic and molecular dating anal...

Note that an errata version of this publication, with corrected distribution map, has been uploaded as a supplementary resource.

Global conservation status assessment

Old World porcupines are elusive, nocturnal rodents who pair for life, exhibiting frequent socio-sexual behaviour also outside the breeding period. Only anecdotal observations on captive individuals are available on the reproductive behaviour of the crested porcupine Hystrix cristata, a Sub-Saharan and North African large rodent probably introduced...

We assessed chemical immobilization and success of trapping devices on a little-known South American mustelid, the lesser grison (Galictis cuja). From December 1998 to June 2006, we live-trapped (n = 23) and radiomarked (n = 9) free-ranging lesser grisons in 2 areas of the Pampas grasslands of Argentina. Both box-traps and rubber-padded leg-hold tr...

Interviews with local people have been widely used by biologists as a cost-effective approach to studying certain topics in wildlife ecology and conservation. However, doubts still exist about the validity and quality of the information gathered, especially in studies targeting cryptic or elusive species, such as carnivores. We assessed the reliabi...

The role that mammalian carnivores play in ecosystems can be deeply altered by human-driven habitat disturbance. While most carnivore species are negatively affected, the impact of habitat changes is expected to depend on their ecological flexibility. We aimed to identify key factors affecting the habitat use by four sympatric carnivore species in...

List of models fitted for each of the four carnivore species studied. GA: “Anthropization Gradient”, GC: “Conservation Gradient”, GF: “Fragmentation Gradient”, GM: “Shrubland Gradient”, df: degree of freedom, logL: log Likelihood, AICc: Akaike Information Criterion corrected for small sample size, ΔAICc: difference in AICc with the top ranking mode...

IUCN Red List reassessment of conservation status

This study describes and compares the activity patterns of free-ranging Molina’s hog-nosed skunks (Conepatus chinga) in a protected area (PA) and in a cropland area (CA) in the Pampas grassland of Argentina. Sixteen skunks (PA: three males, four females; CA: three males, six females) were captured and monitored using radio-telemetry techniques for...

We studied the feeding ecology of Molina’s hog-nosed skunk (Conepatus chinga) in a protected area of the Pampas grassland by comparing the content of scats (140 samples) to prey abundance (estimated by invertebrate capture rates from 38 pitfall trap grids). Fecal analysis supported a largely insectivorous diet, with small vertebrates and carrion re...

Two protocols to immobilise free-ranging Pampas foxes for ear-tagging or radio-collaring were evaluated. One hundred fifteen foxes were injected with ketamine-xylazine (K-X) and thirteen with tiletamine-zolazepam (T-Z). The use of both T-Z and K-X combinations typically resulted in a smooth induction and recovery. In 86% of the cases K-X protocol w...

In order to investigate the factors affecting den site selection in Conepatus chinga, we identified and characterized 199 (males: n = 108, females: n = 91) dens used by 7 radio-tracked skunks from August 2002 to October 2005 in a protected area of the Argentine Pampas grassland. Skunks frequently reused dens (25.1%), without significant differences...

Although critical for enabling in-depth evolutionary, ecological, or conservation-orientated studies, taxonomic knowledge is still scarce for many groups of organisms, including mammals of the order Carnivora. For some of these taxa, even basic aspects such as species limits and geographical distribution are still uncertain. This is the case for th...

In this chapter, we show complementary results to the works of Cossíos et al., (2009,2012), on the genetic structure and phylogenetics of two small Andean cats, the Pampascat (Leopardus pajeros) and the Andean mountain cat (Leopardus jacobita). In thepresent study we increased the samples sizes to 235 individuals for L. pajeros and 115individuals f...

We present a total of 190 new distribution records of three little-known mammalian carnivores ( Conepatus chinga, Galictis cuja, and Lycalopex culpaeus) obtained using camera trap techniques and direct observation in the highlands of Jujuy province, northwestern Argentina. These new records extend the present known distributions of these three...

Because of their similarities, pampas cats Oncifelis colocoloand Andean cats Oreailurus jacobitaare usually studied simultaneously in areas where they overlap, but these similarities have been often an obstacle for researchers. The foot morphology was reported as useful to differentiate these species and potentially develop monitoring programs b...

Community participation is a fundamental component of wildlife conservation strategies worldwide. Many tools have been employed to increase the engagement of communities in conservation programs but their results are rarely assessed. Using a case study approach from the High Andes of northwestern Argentina, we evaluate the community participation s...

We radiotracked 16 (6 males, 10 females) adult Molina’s hog-nosed skunks (Conepatus chinga) to examine habitat selection using compositional analysis at 2 spatial scales in a protected area and a landscape fragmented by agriculture. To aid in understanding the habitat use of skunks, the abundance of invertebrates was estimated in each habitat. Habi...

The Pampas fox (Pseudalopex gymnocercus) is a generalist South American canid that adapts well to the human-dominated landscape of the Argentine pampas, which is largely converted to agriculture and pastures. However, little is known about its ranging behaviour and spatial organization in relict native grasslands. We captured and tracked 13 radio-t...

Geoffroy's and Pampas cats are small felids with large distribution ranges in South America. A camera trap survey was conducted in the Espinal of central Argentina to estimate abundance based on capture—recapture data. For density estimations we used both non-spatial methods and spatially explicit capture—recapture models (SECR). For Geoffroy's cat...