Wildfire and drought alter the ecology of jaguars and co-occurring mammals in the world’s largest wetland

Climate change-driven disturbances are reshaping ecosystems worldwide with profound implications for biodiversity. We leveraged a long-term dataset and a natural before-after-control-impact experimental framework to evaluate the impacts of wildfire and concurrent drought on jaguars and the terrestrial mammal community in northern Pantanal. Using camera traps and jaguar scats collected before, during, and after a large wildfire, we: (1) assessed the immediate and short-term impacts of fire on jaguar demography, abundance, activity, space use, and diet; (2) determined whether changes in mammal species richness and relative abundance occurred; (3) assessed whether these changes were driven by fire, drought, or both; and (4) tested competing hypotheses regarding community structure. We hypothesized that abundant aquatic prey either allow jaguars to suppress terrestrial herbivores through apparent competition, or alternatively, terrestrial mammals are released from predation and instead regu..., , # Data from: Wildfire and drought alter the ecology of jaguars and co-occurring mammals in the world’s largest wetland

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.7sqv9s54x](10.5061/dryad.7sqv9s54x)

## Description of the data and file structure

Data and R code used in \"Wildfire and drought alter the ecology of jaguars and co-occurring mammals in the world’s largest wetland\" Eriksson et al., (2025) *Global Change Biology*

## Files and variables

### rcode_all.R

Contains R code for all models:

1. Jaguar demographics: Annual abundance, survival and recruitment
2. Jaguar activity: BACI model, Annual model, Immediate effects model
3. Species richness BACI model
4. Mammal species activity post-fire in control vs impact sites

### Jaguar Demography Data:

#### adult_caps.csv

Adult jaguar detection histories:

Each row represents a jaguar individual (1 = detected, 0 = not detected) and each column is a session.

#### sex.csv

Sex of each adult jaguar individual:

* 1 = Male
* 2 = Female
* NA = Unknown...,