Does Land Cover Influence the Spatial Distribution of Reservoir Rodent Necromys Lasiurus?

The rodent Necromys lasiurus (Rodentia, Sigmodontinae) is considered to be the main hantavirus reservoir in the Brazilian Cerrado biome. Significant changes to the landscape of this biome have occurred in recent decades. Considering the fact that change in land use patterns can influence species distribution and, as a result, the emergence of diseases, this study sought to analyze the potential geographic distribution of the species N. lasiurus and to understand how land use and occupation contribute to the distribution of this species. Using Ecological Niche Modeling (ENM), environmental suitability models were constructed for N. lasiurus. The Maxent algorithm was used with predictor variables indicated by the results of the jackknife technique. Test accuracy was evaluated using the area under the curve (AUC). The differences in the potential distribution models resulting from the inclusion or exclusion of land use as a variable were not random (p < 0.0001). The jackknife method indicated that the variables referred to as percentage of vegetation cover and land use are the strongest predictive models (38.9% and 37.9%, respectively). The AUC evaluation indicated good performance (0.93 and 0.92). When inserted into the model, the variables land use and vegetation cover were found to significantly influence potential N. lasiurus distribution. These variables should be considered when predicting the occurrence of this medically important rodent.