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Climate envelope predictions indicate an enlarged suitable wintering distribution for Great Bustards (Otis tarda dybowskii) in China for the 21st century

The rapidly changing climate makes humans realize that there is a critical need to incorporate climate change adaptation into conservation planning. Whether the wintering habitats of Great Bustards (Otis tarda dybowskii), a globally endangered migratory subspecies whose population is approximately 1...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Mi, Chunrong, Falk, Huettmann, Guo, Yumin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4741084/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26855870
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1630
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author Mi, Chunrong
Falk, Huettmann
Guo, Yumin
author_facet Mi, Chunrong
Falk, Huettmann
Guo, Yumin
author_sort Mi, Chunrong
collection PubMed
description The rapidly changing climate makes humans realize that there is a critical need to incorporate climate change adaptation into conservation planning. Whether the wintering habitats of Great Bustards (Otis tarda dybowskii), a globally endangered migratory subspecies whose population is approximately 1,500–2,200 individuals in China, would be still suitable in a changing climate environment, and where this could be found, is an important protection issue. In this study, we selected the most suitable species distribution model for bustards using climate envelopes from four machine learning models, combining two modelling approaches (TreeNet and Random Forest) with two sets of variables (correlated variables removed or not). We used common evaluation methods area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUC) and the True Skill Statistic (TSS) as well as independent test data to identify the most suitable model. As often found elsewhere, we found Random Forest with all environmental variables outperformed in all assessment methods. When we projected the best model to the latest IPCC-CMIP5 climate scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5 in three Global Circulation Models (GCMs)), and averaged the project results of the three models, we found that suitable wintering habitats in the current bustard distribution would increase during the 21st century. The Northeast Plain and the south of North China were projected to become two major wintering areas for bustards. However, the models suggest that some currently suitable habitats will experience a reduction, such as Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake in the Middle and Lower Yangtze River Basin. Although our results suggested that suitable habitats in China would widen with climate change, greater efforts should be undertaken to assess and mitigate unstudied human disturbance, such as pollution, hunting, agricultural development, infrastructure construction, habitat fragmentation, and oil and mine exploitation. All of these are negatively and intensely linked with global change.
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spelling pubmed-47410842016-02-05 Climate envelope predictions indicate an enlarged suitable wintering distribution for Great Bustards (Otis tarda dybowskii) in China for the 21st century Mi, Chunrong Falk, Huettmann Guo, Yumin PeerJ Biodiversity The rapidly changing climate makes humans realize that there is a critical need to incorporate climate change adaptation into conservation planning. Whether the wintering habitats of Great Bustards (Otis tarda dybowskii), a globally endangered migratory subspecies whose population is approximately 1,500–2,200 individuals in China, would be still suitable in a changing climate environment, and where this could be found, is an important protection issue. In this study, we selected the most suitable species distribution model for bustards using climate envelopes from four machine learning models, combining two modelling approaches (TreeNet and Random Forest) with two sets of variables (correlated variables removed or not). We used common evaluation methods area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUC) and the True Skill Statistic (TSS) as well as independent test data to identify the most suitable model. As often found elsewhere, we found Random Forest with all environmental variables outperformed in all assessment methods. When we projected the best model to the latest IPCC-CMIP5 climate scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5 in three Global Circulation Models (GCMs)), and averaged the project results of the three models, we found that suitable wintering habitats in the current bustard distribution would increase during the 21st century. The Northeast Plain and the south of North China were projected to become two major wintering areas for bustards. However, the models suggest that some currently suitable habitats will experience a reduction, such as Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake in the Middle and Lower Yangtze River Basin. Although our results suggested that suitable habitats in China would widen with climate change, greater efforts should be undertaken to assess and mitigate unstudied human disturbance, such as pollution, hunting, agricultural development, infrastructure construction, habitat fragmentation, and oil and mine exploitation. All of these are negatively and intensely linked with global change. PeerJ Inc. 2016-02-01 /pmc/articles/PMC4741084/ /pubmed/26855870 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1630 Text en © 2016 Mi et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Biodiversity
Mi, Chunrong
Falk, Huettmann
Guo, Yumin
Climate envelope predictions indicate an enlarged suitable wintering distribution for Great Bustards (Otis tarda dybowskii) in China for the 21st century
title Climate envelope predictions indicate an enlarged suitable wintering distribution for Great Bustards (Otis tarda dybowskii) in China for the 21st century
title_full Climate envelope predictions indicate an enlarged suitable wintering distribution for Great Bustards (Otis tarda dybowskii) in China for the 21st century
title_fullStr Climate envelope predictions indicate an enlarged suitable wintering distribution for Great Bustards (Otis tarda dybowskii) in China for the 21st century
title_full_unstemmed Climate envelope predictions indicate an enlarged suitable wintering distribution for Great Bustards (Otis tarda dybowskii) in China for the 21st century
title_short Climate envelope predictions indicate an enlarged suitable wintering distribution for Great Bustards (Otis tarda dybowskii) in China for the 21st century
title_sort climate envelope predictions indicate an enlarged suitable wintering distribution for great bustards (otis tarda dybowskii) in china for the 21st century
topic Biodiversity
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4741084/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26855870
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1630
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