ORIGINAL PAPER Joint ecological, geographical and cultural approach to identify territories of opportunity for large vertebrates conservation in Mexico Clarita Rodrı ´guez-Soto 1 • Alejandro Velazquez 2 • Octavio Monroy-Vilchis 3 • Pricila Lemes 4 • Rafael Loyola 4 Received: 26 October 2016 / Revised: 10 February 2017 / Accepted: 12 March 2017 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2017 Abstract The objective of the present paper is to provide a holistic framework to delineate ‘‘territories of opportunity’’ where agrarian communities can manage areas to enhance the conservation of large vertebrates. The study was conducted Mexico, which is sociologi- cally, culturally and ecologically complex, similar to other ‘‘megadiverse’’ countries. We conducted ensemble niche modeling of endangered top predators to define a set of large vertebrate species. Environmental attributes were used to perform three distance-based and two artificial intelligence-based algorithms. Socio-cultural attributes were included to depict agricultural communities with strong social government schemes and clear evidence of well-managed natural resources. Other socio-economic attributes such as land acqui- sition cost, human agglomeration and anthropogenic land use were included in the anal- ysis. Scenarios were computed and displayed cartographically with the aid of a geographic information system. Results showed that the largest concentration of biodiversity con- verges on regions with large land cover persistence and high local governance, defined as potential willingness to engage in conservation actions. The cartographic areas identified Communicated by Daniel Sanchez Mata. This article belongs to the Topical Collection: Biodiversity protection and reserves. & Alejandro Velazquez alex@ciga.unam.mx 1 Centro de Estudios e Investigacio ´n en Desarrollo Sustentable (Centre for Studies and Research in Sustainable Development), Universidad Auto ´noma del Estado Me ´xico, Mariano Matamoros 1007, Universidad, 50130 Toluca, Mexico 2 Centro de Investigaciones en Geografı ´a Ambiental (Centre for Research in Environmental Geography), Universidad Nacional Auto ´noma de Me ´xico, Antigua Carretera a Pa ´tzcuaro No. 8701 Col. Ex-Hacienda de San Jose ´ de La Huerta, C.P. 58190 Morelia Michoaca ´n, Mexico 3 Facultad de Ciencias (Faculty of Science), Estacio ´n Biolo ´gica Sierra Nanchititla, Universidad Auto ´noma del Estado Me ´xico, Instituto Literario 100, Centro 50000 Toluca, Mexico 4 Conservation Biogeography Lab, Departamento de Ecologia (Department of Ecology), Universidad Federal de Goias, Goiania, GO, Brazil 123 Biodivers Conserv DOI 10.1007/s10531-017-1335-7