Understanding Mammalian Habitat Use With a Multi‐Species, Multi‐Scale Approach: The Jaguar Protection Corridor in Guaviare, Colombia

The Colombian Amazon is experiencing an accelerated process of natural habitat loss and fragmentation. Understanding how mammal assemblages use habitat across spatial scales in fragmented landscapes is essential for informing conservation strategies such as the Jaguar Protection Corridor in the departments of Guaviare and Meta, Colombia. Our objective was to evaluate habitat use by medium‐ and large‐sized mammal communities inhabiting the corridor, providing an ecological basis for conservation planning. To this end, we applied a multi‐scale, multi‐species occupancy modeling approach to assess the effects of landscape structure and proximity to human infrastructure on mammal occupancy. Our results highlight the fundamental role of natural forest cover and its spatial configuration in determining wildlife habitat use at scales related to species dispersal capacities. Although urban centers and settlements did not show a strong direct effect on most species, indirect impacts such as the presence of domestic dogs must be considered. Species' responses to roads varied: major roads tended to influence species at broader spatial scales, whereas smaller roads had more localized but often stronger negative effects. These findings underscore the value of multi‐scale, multi‐species approaches for understanding habitat use and guiding the management of mammal communities in human‐modified landscapes, while providing ecological information to support corridor‐level conservation planning and restoration prioritization.