Impacts of future climate and land cover changes on threatened mammals in the semi-arid Chinese Altai Mountains

Ye, Xinping; Yu, Xiaoping; Chen, Yu; Tayibazhaer, Aletai; Xu, Fujun; Skidmore, Andrew K.; Wang, Zhihui

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.08.191

Cited by 58 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…In addition, Graham et al (2008) showed that these two approaches were among the better performing modelling techniques when the data was affected by positional errors. To enable the comparison of individual SDMs, we needed to maintain the parameters of MaxEnt unchanged, as done in many prior studies (Franklin et al 2014, Fourcade et al 2014, Holloway et al 2016, Ranc et al 2016, Tingley et al 2018, Ye et al 2018. 1.1.4) and 'glm2' (ver.…”

Section: Model Fitting and Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The quadratic terms of the three environmental variables were included because of the known normal distribution curves of the response function. To enable the comparison of individual SDMs, we needed to maintain the parameters of MaxEnt unchanged, as done in many prior studies (Franklin et al 2014, Fourcade et al 2014, Holloway et al 2016, Ranc et al 2016, Tingley et al 2018, Ye et al 2018. The default settings established by Phillips et al (2009) were used with randomly drawn background data generated from the binary map of the true occurrences of the virtual species.…”

Section: Model Fitting and Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The effect of positional error on fine scale species distribution models increases for specialist species

et al. 2019

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Species occurrences inherently include positional error. Such error can be problematic for species distribution models (SDMs), especially those based on fine-resolution environmental data. It has been suggested that there could be a link between the influence of positional error and the width of the species ecological niche. Although positional errors in species occurrence data may imply serious limitations, especially for modelling species with narrow ecological niche, it has never been thoroughly explored. We used a virtual species approach to assess the effects of the positional error on fine-scale SDMs for species with environmental niches of different widths. We simulated three virtual species with varying niche breadth, from specialist to generalist. The true distribution of these virtual species was then altered by introducing different levels of positional error (from 5 to 500 m). We built generalized linear models and MaxEnt models using the distribution of the three virtual species (unaltered and altered) and a combination of environmental data at 5 m resolution. The models' performance and niche overlap were compared to assess the effect of positional error with varying niche breadth in the geographical and environmental space. The positional error negatively impacted performance and niche overlap metrics. The amplitude of the influence of positional error depended on the species niche, with models for specialist species being more affected than those for generalist species. The positional error had the same effect on both modelling techniques. Finally, increasing sample size did not mitigate the negative influence of positional error. We showed that fine-scale SDMs are considerably affected by positional error, even when such error is low. Therefore, where new surveys are undertaken, we recommend paying attention to data collection techniques to minimize the positional error in occurrence data and thus to avoid its negative effect on SDMs, especially when studying specialist species.

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Section: Model Fitting and Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Model Fitting and Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of positional error on fine scale species distribution models increases for specialist species

et al. 2019

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“…For example, we obtained a part of the supplementary occurrence data from previous studies [22,23]. To avoid possible errors in these data, we removed the records with duplicate locations according to the relevant literature [31]. Furthermore, the records in parks, botanical gardens, and orchards were deleted [32].…”

Section: Species Occurrence Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[33]. In the case of climate for 2070, our study used estimates provided by three global climate models (GCMs), including: CCSM4, MIROC5, and BCC-CSM1-1 [30,31].…”

Section: Species Occurrence Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Differential Responses to Climate and Land-Use Changes in Threatened Chinese Taxus Species

Wang

Feng

et al. 2019

Forests

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Rapid climate and land-use changes have been considered as the foremost threat to global biodiversity. China contains more than 3500 threatened higher plants, whereas the relative influence of climate and land-use changes on these endangered plants have not been explored simultaneously under topographical constraints. Here, using Taxus plants as the case study genus, we simulated the distribution range of threatened species under three scenarios of current and future climate and land-use conditions under topographical constraints. We also measured the associated difference in the responses of Taxus species to climate and land-use changes. Our results demonstrated the substantial influence of climate and land-use changes on the distributions of Taxus species. However, we observed different responses of Taxus species to these environmental changes. The distribution range of T. cuspidate Siebold & Zuccarini and T. mairei Lemee & H. Léveillé would substantially shrink, whereas the habitat range of T. fuana Nan Li & R. R. Mill would sharply expand under RCP 8.5(Representative Concentration Pathway scenarios) scenario. Meanwhile, T. wallichiana Zuccarini and T. chinensis (Pilger) Florin would experience apparent range shifts. Furthermore, topographical factors played non-negligible roles in shaping species distributions, and modifying the influence of climate and land-use changes. Together, these results provide robust evidence that even threatened species will have multiple responses to climate and land-use changes (e.g., shrinking, expanding, shifting). Our findings highlight that taking species ecological traits, habitat characteristics, and topographical constraints into account might provide valuable insights into threatened species conservation in the face of global environmental changes.

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“…mammal diversity and distribution data [14,15]. Despite the increasing availability of wildlife data, few studies have integrated these data to map the distributions of mammal species in regions undergoing expansive land changes [12,16]. These projected species distribution models can then be used to predict range shifts in response to future landscape scenarios, such as those projected under climate change [17,18].…”

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confidence: 99%

Projecting Mammal Distributions in Response to Future Alternative Landscapes in a Rapidly Transitioning Region

et al. 2019

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Finding balance between the needs of people and wildlife is an essential component of planning sustainable landscapes. Because mammals make up a diverse and ecologically important taxon with varying responses to human disturbance, we used representative mammal species to examine how alternative land-use policies might affect their habitats and distributions in the near future. We used wildlife detections from camera traps at 1591 locations along a large-scale urban to wild gradient in northern Virginia, to create occupancy models which determined land cover relationships and the drivers of contemporary mammal distributions. From the 15 species detected, we classified five representative species into two groups based on their responses to human development; sensitive species (American black bears and bobcats) and synanthropic species (red foxes, domestic cats, and white-tailed deer). We then used the habitat models for the representative species to predict their distributions under four future planning scenarios based on strategic versus reactive planning and high or low human population growth. The distributions of sensitive species did not shrink drastically under any scenario, whereas the distributions of synanthropic species increased in response to anthropogenic development, but the magnitude of the response varied based on the projected rate of human population growth. This is likely because most sensitive species are dependent on large, protected public lands in the region, and the majority of projected habitat losses should occur in non-protected private lands. These findings illustrate the importance of public protected lands in mitigating range loss due to land use changes, and the potential positive impact of strategic planning in further mitigating mammalian diversity loss in private lands. mammal diversity and distribution data [14,15]. Despite the increasing availability of wildlife data, few studies have integrated these data to map the distributions of mammal species in regions undergoing expansive land changes [12,16]. These projected species distribution models can then be used to predict range shifts in response to future landscape scenarios, such as those projected under climate change [17,18]. Contemporary biodiversity data provide valuable snapshots of mammal distributions, but they have not been applied to projections of land cover change to forecast community distributions in the future. These predictions would be informative to stakeholders, as they coordinate and select planning policies to preserve biodiversity and their associated ecosystem services.We projected changes in a suite of habitat-relevant land cover types for a rapidly changing landscape in northern Virginia under four different scenarios that varied in policy to plan development strategically (e.g., urban centralized) or reactively (e.g., sprawling) over the next 50 years, while accounting for differences in the rate of human population growth [19]. Scenario planning is a strategic planning approach whereby alternate storyl...

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Impacts of future climate and land cover changes on threatened mammals in the semi-arid Chinese Altai Mountains

Cited by 58 publications

References 63 publications

The effect of positional error on fine scale species distribution models increases for specialist species

The effect of positional error on fine scale species distribution models increases for specialist species

Differential Responses to Climate and Land-Use Changes in Threatened Chinese Taxus Species

Projecting Mammal Distributions in Response to Future Alternative Landscapes in a Rapidly Transitioning Region

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