Fig 1.
Schematic presentation of the framework workflow.
The bases of this rewilding monitoring framework are (A) wildlife tracking data and (B) a habitat classification of the site. (C) The reintroduced species ranges are calculated from the wildlife tracking data. Both wildlife tracking data and the habitat classification are used to obtain (D) the habitat selection of the reintroduced species. We use the species ranges and habitat selection, to calculate and map three different and usable outputs: (E) the realized and potential occupancy, (F) the realized and potential faunal complexity, and (G) the ecological integrity before and after rewilding. These outputs show the spatial progress and potential of the rewilding project. The maps in (D) and (E) show only one of the reintroduced species maps, as an example.
Fig 2.
Map of habitat classes of the study site, Rincón del Socorro. The site was classified into ten habitat classes: aquatic vegetation, artificial surfaces, bare ground, broadleaf forest, free-standing trees, palms, short grassland, tall grassland, Vernonia shrubland, and water.
Table 1.
Area estimations per habitat class.
Fig 3.
Habitat selection of reintroduced species (predicted probability of presence).
Maps of predicted probability of presence for the four reintroduced species, giant anteater, pampas deer, lowland tapir and collared peccary, with a gradient from 1 (highest probability of presence) to 0 (lowest probability of presence).
Fig 4.
Realized and potential occupancy of reintroduced species.
Predicted probability of presence inside and beyond current species range for giant anteater, pampas deer, lowland tapir and collared peccary, in our study site. Realized occupancy of reintroduced species was defined as predicted probability of presence of more than 0.5 inside the current species range, and potential occupancy of reintroduced species was defined as predicted probability of presence of more than 0.5 beyond the current species range. The areas delimitated in black are the species ranges of each species.
Table 2.
Area and proportion of realized and potential occupancy of reintroduced species.
Fig 5.
(A) Realized faunal complexity score. Map of the number of species with realized faunal complexity (predicted probability of presence of more than 0.5, inside the species range) in our site. (B) Potential faunal complexity score. Map of the number of species with potential faunal complexity (predicted probability of presence of more than 0.5, beyond the species range) in our site.
Table 3.
Realized and potential faunal complexity score.
Fig 6.
Map of magnitude of realization of the potential occupancy per cell. An ecological integrity of zero represents no occupancy of any of the species predicted to be there. An ecological integrity of one represents the realization of all predictions for that cell, including species occupancy and species absence. Before (A) and after (B) rewilding.
Table 4.
Ecological integrity score.