Data from: Cats under cover: habitat models indicate a high dependency on woodlands by Atlantic Forest felids

Four Neotropical small and medium felids—the ocelot, jaguarundi, margay
and southern tiger cat—have overlapping geographic distributions in the
endangered Atlantic Forest. Local studies show that these felids avoid
areas with high human impact, but the three smaller ones use
human-modified areas more frequently than do ocelots. To understand how
landscape changes affect the habitat distribution of these four felids in
the Atlantic Forest of Argentina, we used maximum entropy models to
analyze the effect of environmental and anthropogenic factors. We
estimated niche breadth and overlap among these felids. The conversion of
the native forest to land uses without trees was the most important
variable that determined the habitat distribution of the four species. For
all four species the optimal habitat covered less than 1/3 of the study
area and corresponds mainly to the native forest areas. Nearly 50 percent
of these areas had some level of protection. The niche width was higher
for the small felids than for ocelots. Niche overlap was high for all
species pairs, but higher among the small felids and lower for each of
these with the ocelot. The four felids were negatively affected by native
forest loss, with ocelots being more sensitive than the smaller felids.
The conversion of unprotected forest areas to other types of land uses
would imply a greater habitat loss for these felids. The protection of
current remnants of Atlantic Forest in Argentina is important for the
long-term conservation of the four felids.