The Vulnerable Colombian weasel Mustela felipei (Carnivora): new record from Colombia and a review of its distribution in protected areas

Authors

Keywords:

Andes, Carnivora, photographs, rarity.

Abstract

The Colombian weasel Mustela felipei is considered the rarest Neotropical carnivore only known from four localities in Colombia and one in Ecuador. It is considered Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List along its distributional range. We present an unexpected photographic record of a living specimen from Colombia that shed lights on its distribution on the Western Cordillera of Colombia, where it was previously known from single a record obtained on 1986. This is the first confirmed record of the Colombian weasel during the 21st century. Finally, we discuss the species’ occurrence in protected areas of Colombia, to provide tools for the conservation of this rare species.

References

Alberico, M. 1994. New locality record for the Colombian weasel (Mustela felipei). Small Carnivore Conservation 10:16–17.

Anderson, R. P., and A. Raza. 2010. The effect of the extent of the study region on GIS models of species geographic distributions and estimates of niche evolution: preliminary tests with montane rodents (genus Nephelomys) in Venezuela. Journal of Biogeography 37:1378–1393.

Avila, I.C., V. Rojas, C. Saavedra, E. Constantino, E. Velasco, M. Reyes, L. F. Gómez, and G. Kattan. 2007. Comadreja colombiana Mustela felipei Izor y De La Torre, 1978. Pp. 119–122 in Planes de manejo para 18 vertebrados amenazados del Departamento del Valle del Cauca (Corporación Autónoma Regional del Valle del Cauca, CVC - Fundación EcoAndina eds.). Corporación Autónoma Regional del Valle del Cauca, CVC. Santiago de Cali, Valle del Cauca, Colombia.

Burneo, S., J. F. González-Maya, and D. G. Tirira. 2009. Distribution and habitat modelling for Colombian weasel Mustela felipei in the Northern Andes. Small Carnivore Conservation 41:41–45.

Elith, J., C. H. Graham, R. P. Anderson, M. Dudík, S. Ferrier, A. Guisan, R. J. Hijmans, F. Huettmann, J. R. Leathwick, A. Lehmann, J. Li, L. G. Lohmann, B. A. Loiselle, G. Manion, C. Moritz, M. Nakamura, Y. Nakazawa, J. McC. M. Overton, A. T. Peterson, S. J. Phillips, K. Richardson, R. Scachettiâ€Pereira, R. E. Schapire, J. Soberón, S. Williams, M. S. Wisz, and N. E. Zimmermann. 2006. Novel methods improve prediction of species’ distributions from occurrence data. Ecography 29:129–151.

Fick, S. E., and R. J. Hijmans. 2017. WorldClim 2: new 1-km spatial resolution climate surfaces for global land areas. International Journal of Climatology 37:4302–4315.

Gerstner, B. E., J. M. Kass, R. Kays, K. M. Helgen, and R. P. Anderson. 2018. Revised distributional estimates for the recently discovered olinguito (Bassaricyon neblina), with comments on natural and taxonomic history. Journal of Mammalogy 99:321–332.

González-Maya, J. F., L. Emmons, K. Helgen, and A. A. A. Arias-Alzate. 2016. Mustela felipei in The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016: e.T14026A45201088. http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-1.RLTS.T14026A45201088.en. Accessed 10 December 2018.

Harden, C. P. 2006. Human impacts on headwater fluvial systems in the Northern and Central Andes. Geomorphology 79:249–263.

Hofstede, R. G., J. P. Groenendijk, R. Coppus, J. C. Fehse, and J. Sevink. 2002. Impact of pine plantations on soils and vegetation in the Ecuadorian high Andes. Mountain Research and Development 22:159–167.

Izor, R. J., and L. de la Torre. 1978. A new species of weasel (Mustela) from the highlands of Colombia, with comments on the evolution and distribution of South American weasels. Journal of Mammalogy 59:92–102.

MADS - Ministerio del Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible. 2017. Resolución No. 1912, “Por la cual se establece el listado de las especies silvestres amenazadas de la diversidad biológica colombiana continental y marino costera que se encuentran en el territorio nacional, y se dictan otras disposicionesâ€. Bogotá, 15 September 2017. pp. 1–38. Http://www.minambiente.gov.co/images/normativa/app/resoluciones/75-res%201912%20de%202017.pdf Accessed 05 February 2019.

Mesa-González, E. 2006. Comadreja colombiana Mustela felipei. Pp.139–145 in Libro rojo de los mamíferos de Colombia (Rodríguez-Mahecha, J. V., M. Alberico, F. Trujillo, and J. Jorgenson, eds.). Conservación Internacional Colombia, Ministerio de Ambiente, Vivienda y Desarrollo, Territorial, Bogotá, Colombia.

Muscarella, R., P. J. Galante, M. Soley-Guardia, R. A. Boria, J. M. Kass, M. Uriarte, and R. P. Anderson. 2014. ENMeval: An R package for conducting spatially independent evaluations and estimating optimal model complexity for Maxent ecological niche models. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 5:1198–1205.

Pearson R. G., C. J. Raxworthy, M. Nakamura, and A. T. Peterson. 2007. Predicting species distributions from small numbers of occurrence records: a test case using cryptic geckos in Madagascar. Journal of Biogeography 34:102–117.

Phillips, S. J. and M. Dudík. 2008. Modeling of species distributions with Maxent: new extensions and a comprehensive evaluation. Ecography 31:161–175.

Phillips, S. J., R. P. Anderson, and R. E. Schapire. 2006. Maximum entropy modeling of species geographic distributions. Ecological Modelling 190:231–259.

Phillips, S. J., R. P. Anderson, M. Dudík, R. E. Schapire, and M. E. Blair. 2017. Opening the black box: an open-source release of Maxent. Ecography 40:887–893.

Ramírez-Chaves, H. E., and H. Mantilla-Meluk. 2009. Nuevo registro de la comadreja Colombiana Mustela felipei (Carnivora: Mustelidae), con notas sobre su distribución y conservación. Mastozoología Neotropical 16:379–388.

Ramírez-Chaves, H. E., and B. D. Patterson. 2014. Mustela felipei (Carnivora: Mustelidae). Mammalian Species 46:11–15.

Ramírez-Chaves, H. E., and M. M. Torres-Martínez. 2016. Comentarios sobre supuestos registros recientes de la comadreja colombiana (Mustela felipei: Carnivora) en Colombia. Mammalogy Notes 3:36–37.

Ramírez-Chaves, H. E., H. L. Arango-Guerra, and B. D. Patterson. 2014. Mustela africana (Carnivora: Mustelidae). Mammalian Species 46:110–115.

Ramírez-Chaves, H. E., K. P. Mulder, D. Marín, W. A. Pérez, and V. M. Martínez-Arias. 2012. Has Colombian weasel Mustela felipei been overlooked in collections? Small Carnivore Conservation 47:30–34.

Rodríguez Eraso, N., D. Armenteras-Pascual, and J. R. Alumbreros. 2013. Land use and land cover change in the Colombian Andes: dynamics and future scenarios. Journal of Land Use Science 8:154–174.

Shcheglovitova, M., and R. P. Anderson. 2013. Estimating optimal complexity for ecological niche models: a jackknife approach for species with small sample sizes. Ecological Modelling 269:9–17.

Suárez-Castro, A. F., and H. E. Ramírez-Chaves. 2015. Los carnívoros terrestres y semiacuáticos continentales de Colombia. Guía de campo. Editorial Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Bogotá, Colombia.

Zuur, A. F., E. N. Ieno, and C. S. Elphick. 2010. A protocol for data exploration to avoid common statistical problems. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 1:3–14.

Downloads

Published

2019-05-20

Issue

Section

Notes