Modelado de distribución geográfica del oso andino bajo escenarios de cambio climático en Colombia

Abstract

The Andean bear (Tremarctos ornatus), the only living being representative of the Tremarctinae subfamily, its habitat is constituted by the forests present in the mountain range of those of the South American countries, Colombia being the architect of this research, appearing from the 500 to even areas above 4,000 masl, however, as a result of human occupation in Latin America, they are found only from 2,500 masl (CAR Cundinamarca, 2018). In Colombia, its outlook does not seem to be encouraging, since added to the land occupation processes and derived anthropic activities that modify the natural environment of the spectacled bear, its habitat is presumed to be exposed to the effects of climate change, which may come to greatly affect their geographical distribution and thereby put their survival even more at risk. To understand the negative impact of climate change on spectacled bears, their current habitat was modeled using the MaxEnt algorithm, using 19 current bioclimatic variables and 19 future biovariables along with 156 records of the species' presence. Its biological corridors were identified along the Andes mountain ranges, where it was found that the specimens of Tremarctos ornatus are distributed over 1,374,282 hectares. From this study, a substantial loss of 382,946 hectares of the ideal habitat for Tramarctos ornatus in Colombia was found by 2050.