Global habitat suitability modeling reveals insufficient habitat protection for mangrove crabs

Mangrove crabs are important components of mangrove forests however their large scale habitat suitability and conservation received little attention. The Metopograpsus thukuhar/cannicci species complex is a mangrove dwelling species occurs in the Indo-Pacific mangrove forests. Since identifying the complex suitable habitat is critical for its conservation, we modeled global habitat suitability of the complex within marine biogeographic realms and estimated representation of the complex suitable habitats within marine protected areas. We found that the complex’ largest and smallest suitable ranges are located in Central Indo-Pacific and Temperate Southern Africa realms, respectively. Only 12.5% of the complex suitable habitat is protected. The highest proportion of the complex’ protected suitable habitat (22.9%) is located in Western Indo-Pacific realm while the lowest proportion of the complex’ protected suitable habitat (1.38%) is located in Central Indo-Pacific realm. Suitable unprotected habitats of the complex identified in this study have high priority for conservation and should be included in marine protected areas to ensure species conservation. Our results show that species distribution models are practical tools to study marine species distribution across large spatial scales and help marine conservation planning.