Research overview: jaguar northern range limits, climate, and recolonization

At the northern edge of its range in Mexico and the southwestern United States, the jaguar occupies arid borderlands where climate, water availability, and human infrastructure shape persistence. This overview surveys how habitat suitability is modeled at this dry margin, the role of climate change in shifting aridity and prey, and the controversy over potential jaguar recolonization north of the border. It reviews how the international border wall and roads sever connectivity that any range shift would require. The synthesis frames the northern jaguar frontier as a case where climate-driven habitat change intersects sharply with geopolitical barriers, illustrating how infrastructure can foreclose the very movements that climate adaptation would demand.