A Crucial responsibility to our planet
Created by Moncrief and Larsen, SEA-DISC Sir Francis Drake High School, 2017
Desert landscape, (Moncrief, 2017)
Jaguar prowling, (Timbako, 2017)
So where does the jaguar fit into the puzzle of biodiversity? Ranging from Argentina to the Southernmost region of Arizona and New Mexico, they provide ecological and economic services that support biodiversity in their ecosystem. They are considered an apex predators and keystone species, meaning they support their ecosystem and greatly affect the populations of other creatures (Nogueira, 2009). It is especially dangerous to get rid of a keystone species because, as the name implies, many other species rely on them for survival and maintaining a balance in their habitat. Some of the animals that jaguars are known to prey on include deer, peccary, crocodiles, snakes, monkeys, tapirs, turtles, eggs, frogs, and fish. Jaguars are very resourceful, though, and will eat almost anything that they come across (Gunther, 2017).
Many of these prey species would have a population boom and then overgraze and over consume lower trophic levels if left without the jaguar as a predator. This would lead to many environmental changes that would have a large and lasting effect. Some of these unwelcome changes, like changes to soil nutrients, water availability, vegetation type and frequency, changes in wildfire frequency and intensity, and decreases in biodiversity, can be predicted (Zielinski, 2011). Other changes can’t be predicted and humans can’t attempt to compensate for them until possibly years after the jaguar goes extinct. One thing is for sure though: changes such as these would be felt by humans. With changes such as these, crops would suffer and many agricultural processes would have to change. If jaguars were to go extinct, all of the animals underneath them in the food chain would go out of balance, causing the entire food chain would go out of balance. This shift would result in an entire ecosystem suffering.
Jaguars are also umbrella species: they can cover large areas in their daily and seasonal movements (Eisenberg, 2014). This means protecting sufficient habitat to sustain their populations also benefits many other species restricted in their range, thus aiding species diversity. However, their most significant interactions occur within the food web by providing other species such as ocelots, coyotes, bears, and birds of prey, with their leftovers (Eisenberg, 2014). Borderland jaguars generally kill a deer every three to five days, eating their fill and storing the rest. While they sleep, other species come to feed on the carcasses of the jaguar’s killed-prey (Eisenberg, 2014). So by protecting the jaguar we are also protecting the many species that depend on them for food and population control.