The expansion process of the Iberian ibex in the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park, Madrid (Spain)

Abstract

In this paper we explore the usefulness of MaxEnt to predict the most suitable areas for a wildlife species, the Iberian ibex (Capra pyrenaica). For two decades (1990–2010), the species was established in a small part of the National Park Sierra de Guadarrama (Spain) and there has been a process of expansion to other areas of this protected area since 2010. However, almost two decades have elapsed since the modeling methods (MaxEnt) were proposed and no studies have tested their effectiveness using real distribution data, i.e. data from past predictions, to see if they fit the current distribution. We generated a model with presence– only data from 2007 and verified accuracy from 2017 data concerning real presence. Our results show a relationship between models and the species' current presence. The generated model can be useful to define the preferred locations of the species. We detected several differences between males and females of the species. This work not only shows the importance of selecting climatic and ecological variables for the construction of models but also indicates that they must be adjusted, at least for some species, to each sex and period of the year.