ORIGINAL ARTICLE Habitat requirements and differential abundance of the culpeo (Lycalopex culpaeus) in the high Andes of southern Ecuador Marta Guntiñas 1,2 & Jorge Lozano 3 & Rodrigo Cisneros 1,2 & Carlos Narváez 1 & Daniela Arias 1 Received: 27 July 2018 /Revised: 17 January 2019 /Accepted: 21 January 2019 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019 Abstract Basic information on culpeos’ ecology for vast regions of its range is lacking. A model was built explaining the differential abundance of culpeos in the high Ecuadorian Andes. This model considered several environmental variables and is the first approach to evaluate the culpeo’ s habitat requirements in Ecuador. Fixed 1-km transects were established along paths in the highest areas of Podocarpus National Park. Here, a culpeo abundance index (AI) was calculated monthly for each transect during a year. The AI was derived from the occurrence frequency of scats, and genetic analyses were performed to confirm scat identifications. Environmental variables (e.g., climate, vegetation cover, environmental richness, and diversity) were measured at two spatial scales (microhabitat and landscape). Predictors were grouped into orthogonal factors, and general linear models (GLM) were obtained by applying a selection method of models. The results show that the highest culpeo abundances were associated with well-preserved homogeneous areas that had high levels of rainfall and extreme temperatures, with these features being characteristic of pure “paramo” at the highest altitudes. In addition, a strong positive relationship was also found with the abundance of the mountain tapir. It is suggested that the subspecies of culpeo inhabiting this region could be particularly adapted to the ecological conditions of paramo areas. If so, habitat fragmentation and ongoing changes in land use, as well as climate change, could be potential threats for the culpeo both in the study area and the entire Ecuadorian high-Andean ecosystem. Keywords Andean fox . Global change . Habitat disturbance . Habitat use . Paramo Introduction The culpeo or Andean fox (Lycalopex culpaeus Molina, 1782) is the second largest canid (4–11 kg) in South America (Jiménez et al. 1996; Jiménez and Novaro 2004). The species ranges from southern Colombia to Argentina along the Andes and can be found from sea level up to 4800 m.a.s.l. (Wilson and Reeder 2005; Lucherini 2016). Culpeos can occupy a large variety of habitats, such as arid and semi-arid shrub lands (Meserve et al. 1987; Ebensperger et al. 1991; Campos and Ojeda 1997), puna areas (Marquet et al. 1993), or steppe eco- systems (Pia et al. 2003, 2013). Moreover, culpeos live in humanized environments (Salvatori et al. 1999), where they can be persecuted as a pest species (Johnson and Franklin 1994; Novaro et al. 2000; Jiménez and Novaro 2004; Pia 2013). The culpeo is not globally threatened (Lucherini 2016), but its conservation status is worsening at the regional scale due to several threats, such as human persecution and trapping for fur (Jiménez and Novaro 2004; Tirira 2011). In Argentina, Pia et al. (2003) have shown that culpeo populations are similar in both natural and livestock areas, which seems to indicate that this canid is able to adapt to different ecological circumstances. However, the limits of the culpeo’ s adaptation capacity have been poorly studied, among other things because habitat requirements of the spe- cies are still unknown for the major part of its range (Jiménez and Novaro 2004). This is in fact the case in Ecuador, where the species has been recorded as “vulnerable” by the Ecuadorian Red List of Mammals (Tirira 2011). Marta Guntiñas and Jorge Lozano contributed equally to this work. * Marta Guntiñas m.guntinas.r@gmail.com 1 Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja, San Cayetano Alto, C/París s/n., 1101608 Loja, Ecuador 2 ESCET, Departamento de Biología y Geología, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, C/Tulipán s/n, 28933 Móstoles, Spain 3 Unidad de Ecología, Departamento de Biodiversidad, Ecología y Evolución, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, C/ José Antonio Novais 12, 28040 Madrid, Spain European Journal of Wildlife Research (2019) 65:18 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-019-1255-9