Potential habitat and priority protection area of cranes with climate change in the Great Xing'an Mountains, China

Abstract

To clarify the impacts of climate change on the potential distribution of six crane species in the Great Xing'an Mountains region, and promote the effective protection of these species, we selected key environmental variables such as climate, topography, and vegetation type based on Pearson correlation and Jackknife analysis, and modeled the potential distribution of six crane species in the Great Xing'an Mountains using MaxEnt with the current and the future climate change scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). We identified the priority protection areas (PPAs) and the target PPAs by zonation and ArcGIS. The results showed that with the current climate condition, the sui-table habitats of these species were mainly distributed in the central and the northwest part of the Great Xing'an Mountains. With RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, the suitable habitats of Grus monacha, Grus japonensis, Grus vipio, Grus grus and Anthropoides virgo would decrease, while that of Grus leucogeranus would expand by 5.4%-6.3%. With current and the future climate change scenarios, the PPAs of these species were mainly distributed in the northwest, southeast and west-central parts of the Great Xing'an Mountains. The protect rate could reach about 20.1%-23.8% of the target PPAs conserved by protected areas (PAs). The protection gaps were mainly distributed in the west of Mohe County, the north-central of Ergun, the central and east of Genhe, the northeast of Yakeshi, and the south of Oroqen Autonomous Banner. We proposed to expand PAs to provide a strong guarantee for the effective protection of cranes species.