Armadillo Mapper

Abstract

Ecological niche modeling (ENM) uses species’ known occurrences and environmental variables to estimate potential geographic distributions. The potential distribution of a species can be updated and refined after new occurrences are collected; therefore, we developed an online application (Armadillo Mapper [AM]) that automatically updates the ecological niche model for the hairy long-nosed armadillo ( Dasypus pilosus) with new observations and provides a revised potential distribution map. AM can be used by researchers and conservation practitioners without a deep knowledge of geographic information system (GIS) techniques and ENM. Here, we introduce this online application and demonstrate the use of our application with a new observation of D. pilosus. AM has the potential to be extended to other species and to bridge the gap between distributional knowledge synthesized in a computer lab and conservation efforts carried out in the field.