Cracids are a primitive family of Neotropical Galliformes. They are mainly frugivorous birds that inhabit primary forests, and may play an important role in regenerating and structuring forests through the dispersion and predation of seeds (Peres and Roosmalen 1996; Sedaghatkish 1996; Muñoz and Kattan 2007). Based on this and on their sensitivity to disturbance, the presence of viable populations of cracids in an area is considered indicative of forest quality.

Cracids are one of the most vulnerable groups of Neotropical birds because almost half of the 54 recognized species (AOU 2014) are at risk, and some of them are almost extinct (Brooks and Strahl 2000). This vulnerability is a consequence of their strong dependence on primary forests, and their susceptibility to habitat destruction and degradation, in addition to the intensity of hunting faced by cracids (Silva and Strahl 1991, 1997; Brooks and Strahl 2000; del Hoyo and Motis 2004). These factors together with life history traits of delayed age of first reproduction, low chick survival, and low reproduction rates, act in synergy to exacerbate the vulnerability of cracids to human pressures. In Mexico there are 12 cracid taxa of which six are included in the national list of threatened species (SEMARNAT 2010) and two (Oreophasis derbianus and Crax rubra griscomi) are globally endangered (Brooks and Strahl 2000; Martínez-Morales et al. 2009; IUCN 2013).

The lack of up to date, high quality data on the presence and abundance of cracids in many regions of their distribution prevents the definition and implementation of appropriate management strategies for their conservation (Brooks and Strahl 2000; González-García et al. 2001). Although their distribution has already been depicted in maps (Delacour and Amadon 2004; Ridgley et al. 2012), and even analysed in the context of global climate change (Peterson et al. 2001), we still do not know the present species distribution with a high level of certainty as a result of continual changes in forest cover. Not to mention that for several species or regions there are still significant gaps in knowledge of species distribution. In this regard, the former Cracid Specialist Group recommended an urgent revision of cracid distribution (Brooks and Strahl 2000; Brooks 2006).

To tackle this imperative need for information, we constructed the CracidMex1 database that embodies an exhaustive, high quality, and updated compilation of the global geographic records of the eight cracid species with distribution in Mexico. The collation of records from numerous sources required a thorough process of quality control in terms of consolidation and elimination of record redundancies, completion of missing data, verification of record localities and their spatial precision, and validation of taxa identity. This involved an iterative process of automatized tasks and the use of expert knowledge in terms of species and regions.

The CracidMex1 database will provide high quality, input data that could be used to identify areas where more research is needed, generate species distribution models, assess temporal changes in species distribution, identify priority areas for cracid conservation, and even in the definition of management strategies for this avian group. This compilation exercise could be replicated for other groups of cracids or regions to achieve a more complete knowledge of the global occurrences of the species of this vulnerable bird family.

This open access database will be continuously reviewed and supplemented with additional records, and all contributions to the database are very welcome.

http://ipt.pensoft.net/ipt/resource.do?r=cracidmex1

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Aves

Order: Galliformes

Family: Cracidae

Genera: Ortalis, Penelope, Penelopina, Oreophasis, Crax

Species: Ortalis vetula (Wagler, 1830), Ortalis wagleri Gray, 1867, Ortalis poliocephala (Wagler, 1830), Ortalis leucogastra (Gould, 1843), Penelope purpurascens Wagler, 1830, Penelopina nigra (Fraser, 1852), Oreophasis derbianus Gray, 1844, Crax rubra Linnaeus, 1758 (Table 1).

Common names: Chachalacas, Guans, and Curassows

The CracidMex1 database comprises 23, 896 global records of 12 taxa of cracid species and subspecies with distribution in Mexico. This includes eight cracid species distributed in Mexico, out of the 54 recognized species in the Neotropical region (AOU 2014). The database also includes records of Ortalis vetula deschauenseei from the Utila Island, Honduras, and of two other subspecies of Penelope purpurascens (aequatorialis and brunnescens) which are not distributed in Mexico (Table 2). The genus Ortalis accounted for most of the records, followed by Penelope, Crax, Penelopina, and Oreophasis. This bias in records at a genus level is also mirrored at species level (Figure 1). However, at subspecies level this bias is not evident because only 19.9% of the records assignable to subspecies level are given to this taxonomic level (4.6% in Ortalis vetula, 43.5% in Penelope purpurascens, and 100% in Crax rubra).

Spatial coverage

General spatial coverage

Valid distributional records (22, 731), based on the native distribution of taxa, cover distributions from southern Texas, USA, in the north, to Loja, Ecuador, in the south, including Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, and Peru (Table 3, Figures 2 and 3). These records are labelled as presente (present) in the “occurrenceStatus” field of the database. Other records corresponded to zoo specimens (49), records with spatial inconsistencies or ambiguities (143), and records for which coordinates could not be calculated due to insufficient information in the description of the locality (981). These records are labelled as ausente (absent) or dudoso (doubtful) in the “occurrenceStatus” field. In this case a label of “absent” (186 records) means that the record is out of the distributional range of the species (e.g., zoo records), and “doubtful” (979) means that the species could be present in the area, but the ambiguity in the description of the locality prevents an unequivocal assertion of the spatial validity of the record (e.g., Locality: Mexico).

Figure 2.

Geographic distribution of the 22, 731 valid distributional records of cracids in the CracidMex1 database. Grey shadeing represents the area where the species occurrence is expected based on Ridgley et al. (2012).

Figure 3.

Distribution of cracid genera by country for the 22, 731 valid distributional records in the CracidMex1 database.

Table 3.

Number of valid distributional records of cracid species by country in the CracidMex1 database.

Country	Ortalis vetula	Ortalis wagleri	Ortalis poliocephala	Ortalis leucogastra	Penelope purpurascens	Penelopina nigra	Oreophasis derbianus	Crax rubra	Total
USA	9, 904	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	9, 904
Mexico	2, 938	1, 113	1, 675	124	642	533	145	430	7, 600
Belize	533	0	0	0	175	0	0	112	820
Guatemala	408	0	0	87	176	145	210	115	1, 141
Honduras	134	0	0	0	33	42	0	16	225
El Salvador	1	0	0	78	10	29	0	10	128
Nicaragua	17	0	0	33	21	73	0	17	161
Costa Rica	57	0	0	0	1, 410	0	0	769	2, 236
Panama	0	0	0	0	141	0	0	59	200
Colombia	0	0	0	0	128	0	0	43	171
Venezuela	0	0	0	0	41	0	0	0	41
Ecuador	0	0	0	0	90	0	0	13	103
Peru	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	1
Total	13, 992	1, 113	1, 675	322	2, 868	822	355	1, 584	22, 731

Coordinates

-4.3327 to 31.1707 Latitude; -109.4433 to -61.1382 Longitude. This range includes the location of only the 22, 731 valid distributional records (Figure 2).

The date of occurrence records (year-month-day) encompasses from 1700-01-01 to 2013-10-25. However, of the 22, 731 valid distributional records, 854 lack information on recording date. Although temporal coverage spans more than 300 years, most of the records were generated in the last decades (Figure 4). A boom in reporting or generating species records started at the end of the last century, most probably due to the emergence of the Internet and technological advancement in field survey equipment. Additionally, this observed pattern might be due to an increased interest in studying this bird group. Information gathered through years of research and observation of the species’ natural history led to the publication in 1973 of the first edition of the inspiring book “Curassows and related birds” by Delacour and Amadon. Added to which the First International Symposium on the Family Cracidae was organized in 1981, which may also have triggered an exponential increase in the interest for studying this avian group, and thus, an increase in reporting species occurrences.

Title: Present and future distribution models of cracids occurring in Mexico.

Personnel: Miguel Angel Martínez-Morales (Project Coordinator, Resource Contact, Resource Creator), Gonzalo Enrique Pinilla-Buitrago (Database Manager, Metadata Provider), Fernando González-García, Paula L. Enríquez, José Luis Rangel-Salazar, Carlos Alberto Guichard Romero, Adolfo G. Navarro-Sigüenza, Tiberio César Monterrubio-Rico, Griselda Escalona-Segura (Data Contributors).

Funding: National Commission for Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO), Mexico, under the agreement FB1585/JM024/12.

Study area descriptions/descriptor: Valid distribution records are located in the northern portion of the Neotropical region, including the transitional zone with the Nearctic region (Figure 5). Native vegetation in this area ranges from tropical dry to humid forests, and from lowlands to montane forests. However, a large proportion of the native vegetation has been converted to pasture and agricultural areas. The expansion of human settlements, infrastructure, and mining have also contributed to forest degradation and deforestation in the region. Tropical forests have the largest net loss of forested area compared to other forest types in the world (FAO and JRC 2012), and the Neotropical region is not the exception. The study area includes the Mesoamerica biodiversity hotspot, the Chocó/Darién/Western Ecuador hotspot, and marginally the Tropical Andes hotspot (Myers et al. 2000), but these hotspots harbour only 20 to 25% of the original extent of primary vegetation.

Given the current pattern of forest cover in the region, and the temporal coverage of records in the CracidMex1 database, many records, particularly older records, are now located outside of currently forested areas (Figure 5). This suggests a substantial reduction in the distribution of cracid species, particularly for those species restricted to primary forests (Penelope purpurascens, Penelopina nigra, Oreophasis derbianus, and Crax rubra). Habitat loss and hunting pressure are the main drivers of cracid population declines and distribution contractions, the synergy of which has caused the endangerment of these species (Silva and Strahl 1991, 1997; Brooks and Strahl 2000; del Hoyo and Motis 2004).

Design description: The construction of the CracidMex1 database aimed to gather most of the globally available records of cracids which are distributed in Mexico, in order to generate global species distribution models. We initiated the construction of the database by collating records from six electronic databases available through the Internet: GBIF <http://data.gbif.org>, ORNIS <http://www.ornisnet.org>, REMIB <http://www.conabio.gob.mx/remib/doctos/remib_esp.html>, UNIBIO <http://unibio.unam.mx>, SpeciesLink <http://splink.cria.org.br>, and IBC <http://ibc.lynxeds.com>. Additionally, we obtained records from the National System of Information on Biodiversity (SNIB) database at CONABIO and from museum specimen records contained in the Bird Atlas of Mexico database at the Facultad de Ciencias of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. We also obtained records from published papers through searches in BioOne <http://www.bioone.org>, EBSCO <http://search.ebscohost.com>, JSTOR <http://www.jstor.org>, ScienceDirect <http://www.sciencedirect.com>, Springer Link <http://www.springerlink.com>, Web of Science <http://apps.webofknowledge.com>, Wiley Online Library <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com>, Zoological Record <http://thomsonreuters.com/zoological-record/>, Redalyc <http://www.redalyc.org>, SciELO <http://www.scielo.org>, and Google Scholar <scholar.google.com>. We also reviewed the bulletins of the Cracid Group of the Galliformes Specialists Group <http://www.cracids.org>. Added to which, we gathered records from “grey literature” through searches in technical reports and theses. These searches included the electronic portal of CONABIO and the repositories OpenDOAR <http://opendoar.org> and the Registry of Open Access Repositories <http://roar.eprints.org>. Finally, we gathered records from our own and unpublished databases of colleagues through personal contacts. After the GBIF, these personal unpublished databases were the second most important source of records, followed by records gathered from the SNIB and published papers (Table 4).

Database quality control, based on the standards described in CONABIO (2012), was an iterative process that commenced with the detection, consolidation and elimination of duplicate records (the same record reported in more than one source). For detection of duplicate records within and among sources we first gave priority to the fields “institutionCode”, “catalogNumber”, “country”, “state”, “locality”, “decimalLatitude”, and “decimalLongitude”. The consolidation process consisted of the creation of a single record with more complete data from duplicate records. In the case of inconsistencies in duplicate records, we referred to the original source of the record. We avoided and corrected errors (omission, typographic, contextual, redundancy, convention, and congruence) through automatized tasks and case by case revision of the database. We then calculated geographic coordinates and their uncertainties for those records lacking these data, based on the standards described in CONABIO (2008). All coordinates refer to the datum WGS84. We used a variety of resources for geo-referencing, namely Google Earth 7 <http://www.google.com/earth/index.html>, Google Maps and the tools of Map Labs <http://maps.google.com>, glosk <http://www.glosk.com/>, CONABIO <http://www.conabio.gob.mx/informacion/metadata/gis/loc2000gw.xml?_httpcache=yes&_xsl=/db/metadata/xsl/fgdc_html.xsl&_indent=no>, GEOSiB <http://www.humboldt.org.co/geoinformacion/geosib>, and Georeferencing Calculator <http://manisnet.org/gci2.html>. We also consulted regional experts for advice during the geo-referencing process. Once we were sufficiently certain of the correct location of the record, we checked that each location was consistent with taxa identification by displaying the records in a GIS. This taxonomic and geographic validation through the use of GIS tools and expert knowledge allowed us to detect inconsistencies. Where possible, we corrected inconsistencies through an iterative process, otherwise we labelled the record as “doubtful” (979 records) or “absent” (186) in the “occurrenceStatus” field as described above (Figure 6).

The CracidMex1 database has 41 fields based on the standard Darwin Core version 1.4 (Table 5).

Object name: Darwin Core Archive CracidMex1: a comprehensive database of global occurrences of cracids (Aves, Galliformes) with distribution in Mexico

Character encoding: UTF-8

Format and storage mode: xlsx; ASCII csv, tab-delimited; decimal separator: ‘.’

Distribution: http://ipt.pensoft.net/ipt/resource.do?r=cracidmex1

Publication date of data: 2014-03-10

Language: Spanish.

Metadata language: English.

Date of metadata creation: 2014-01-08

Hierarchy level: Dataset