Armadillo Mapper: A Case Study of an Online Application to Update Estimates of Species' Potential Distributions

Ecological niche modeling (ENM) uses species' known occurrences and environmental variables to estimate potential geographic distributions. The potential distribution of a species can be updated and refined after new occurrences are collected; therefore, we developed an online application (Armadillo Mapper [AM]) that automatically updates the ecological niche model for the hairy long-nosed armadillo (Dasypus pilosus) with new observations and provides a revised potential distribution map. AM can be used by researchers and conservation practitioners without a deep knowledge of geographic information system (GIS) techniques and ENM. Here, we introduce this online application and demonstrate the use of our application with a new observation of D. pilosus. AM has the potential to be extended to other species and to bridge the gap between distributional knowledge synthesized in a computer lab and conservation efforts carried out in the field.