Range-wide habitat use of the Harpy Eagle indicates four major tropical forest gaps in the Key Biodiversity Area network

Quantifying habitat use is important for understanding how animals meet their requirements for survival and provides information for conservation planning. Currently, assessments of range-wide habitat use that delimit species distributions are incomplete for many taxa. The Harpy Eagle (Harpia harpyja) is a raptor of conservation concern, widely distributed across Neotropical lowland forests, that currently faces threats from habitat loss and fragmentation. Here, we use penalized logistic regression to identify species-habitat associations and predict habitat suitability based on a new International Union for the Conservation of Nature range metric, termed Area of Habitat. From the species-habitat model, we performed a gap analysis to identify areas of high habitat suitability in regions with limited coverage in the Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) network. Range-wide habitat use indicated that Harpy Eagles prefer areas of 70-75% evergreen forest cover, low elevation, and high vegetation spec...