Research overview: changing fire and flood regimes in the Pantanal for jaguars

The Pantanal wetland supports one of the densest known jaguar populations, and its future hinges on the flood-drought cycle that climate change is disrupting. This overview surveys how altered rainfall, prolonged droughts, and the catastrophic wildfires that swept the region have affected jaguar habitat, prey, and movement, and how a wetland adapted to seasonal flooding responds to deeper droughts and hotter fire seasons. It reviews the implications for prey such as caiman and capybara and for human land use. The synthesis frames the Pantanal as a climate-sensitive jaguar stronghold where extreme events, not gradual warming alone, pose the sharpest near-term threat to a flagship population.