Habitat patches and corridors are essential for jaguars because when young jaguars become of age, they are forced to explore their home range. This results in traveling far distances to find a home range that does not conflict with another jaguar. The jaguar is a top-level predator. It doesn't have any natural predators other than humans, who hunt them for their fur or sport.The journey they must take can be life threatening, with challenges faced along the way from humans or other jaguars. They require habitats that include food (prey), water, and vegetative cover in order to survive and reproduce. Jaguars use the pattern of dispersal, in which individuals from other areas travel to new populations, which allows them to bring new genetic material (that may better allow the species to adapt and survive) and increase genetic variability to help preserve a species. The dispersal of juveniles is important because if a population remains isolated, they may become inbred which leads to a population decrease.
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