Using Species Distribution Model to Estimate the Wintering Population Size of the Endangered Scaly-Sided Merganser in China

Scaly-sided Merganser is a globally endangered species restricted to eastern Asia. Estimating its population is difficult and considerable gap exists between populations at its breeding grounds and wintering sites. In this study, we built a species distribution model (SDM) using Maxent with presence-only data to predict the potential wintering habitat for Scaly-sided Merganser in China. Area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) method suggests high predictive power of the model (training and testing AUC were 0.97 and 0.96 respectively). The most significant environmental variables included annual mean temperature, mean temperature of coldest quarter, minimum temperature of coldest month and precipitation of driest quarter. Suitable conditions for Scaly-sided Merganser are predicted in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, especially in Jiangxi, Hunan and Hubei Provinces. The predicted suitable habitat embraces 6,984 km of river. Based on survey results from three consecutive winters (2010–2012) and previous studies, we estimated that the entire wintering population of Scaly-sided Merganser in China to be 3,561 ± 478 individuals, which is consistent with estimate in its breeding ground.