21st Century Climate Change Threatens on the Brown Bear

Abstract

Background: Today, the biggest threat to mammalian predators with wide distribution areas is habitats fragmentation or changing climate conditions. We aimed to reveal the habitat suitability modeling and mapping of the Brown bear, which is an important large mammal in Turkey's borders, under change climate. The habitat suitability modelling was determined using the present (2010) and future (2040-2070-2100) chelsa climate scenarios (IPSL-CM6A-LR SSP126-SSP370-SSP585) Maxent method with the present data obtained by examining all studies on Brown bear. Then, the mapping result values for the different years and scenarios were classified as 0.5 unsuitable habitats, 0.51-0.8 suitable habitats and 0.81-1.0 most suitable habitats. Results:We determined that the variables contributing to the habitat suitability model of Brown bear are annual precipitation amount, the average annual air temperature, the precipitation amount of the wettest month, the ruggedness and elevation. According to the mapping results for different years and scenarios; Brown bear have suitable habitat a minimum of 14.87% of the study area in today, 12.56% in 2040 year, 10.93% in 2070 year and 8.24% in 2100 year. According to the SSP585 climate scenario of 2100 year, the habitat suitability of the Brown bear decreases by approximately 45%. Also, the climate envelope model created with MaxEnt revealed, the change climate in the 2100 year endangered the Brown bear. Conclusion:Therefore, these results will be a source of information for the sustainability of the extinction of the Brown bear, for the pre-protection of existing and potential habitats and for reducing the impact of change climate conditions.