Projecting shifts in the distributions of Chinese endemic vertebrate species under climate and land-use change

• DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2023.1174495
• Publication Date: 2023-06-13T04:38:23Z
• Authors: Yiming Deng; Eben Goodale; Anran Dong; Demeng Jiang; Aiwu Jiang; Zhixin Zhang; Christos Mammides
• Keywords: Species distribution; Global Change; Representative Concentration Pathways; Environmental niche modelling; Environmental change

Human-induced climate and land-use change impact species’ habitats survival ability. A growing body of research uses species distribution models (SDMs) to predict potential changes in ranges under global change. We constructed SDMs for 411 Chinese endemic vertebrates using Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) modeling four shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) spanning 2100. compared different approaches: (1) only climatic geographic factors, (2) adding anthropogenic factors (land-use types human population densities), but current data project into the future, (3) incorporating future estimates variables, (4) processing occurrence extracted from IUCN range maps remove unsuitable areas reflect each area habitat (AOH). The results showed that performance (as measured by Boyce index) improved with inclusion data. Additionally, predicted suitable was most restricted diminished area, when fourth approach. Overall, are consistent other studies showing distributions will shift higher elevations latitudes change, especially emission scenarios. Species threatened currently, as listed IUCN, have their decrease more than others. scenarios forecast future. Our findings show approaches optimizing SDM can improve accuracy, predicting direct consequences, which need be anticipated. also poses a significant threat even regions extensive protected land at elevations, such China.