Abstract
Many studies predict that climate change will cause species movement and turnover, but few have considered the effect of climate change on range fragmentation for current species and/or populations. We used MaxEnt to predict suitable habitat, fragmentation and turnover for 134 amphibian species in China under 40 future climate change scenarios spanning four pathways (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6 and RCP8.5) and two time periods (the 2050s and 2070s). Our results show that climate change may cause a major shift in spatial patterns of amphibian diversity. Amphibians in China would lose 20% of their original ranges on average; the distribution outside current ranges would increase by 15%. Suitable habitats for over 90% of species will be located in the north of their current range, for over 95% of species in higher altitudes (from currently 137–4,124 m to 286–4,396 m in the 2050s or 314–4,448 m in the 2070s), and for over 75% of species in the west of their current range. Also, our results predict two different general responses to the climate change: some species contract their ranges while moving westwards, southwards and to higher altitudes, while others expand their ranges. Finally, our analyses indicate that range dynamics and fragmentation are related, which means that the effects of climate change on Chinese amphibians might be two-folded.
Highlights
Global climate is changing rapidly because of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, with unexpected consequences (Solomon, 2007)
Our results show that Chinese amphibians would exhibited a variety of climate-driven range shifts and as expected we detected the greatest change in amphibian distribution under RCP8.5 and by the 2070s
Effects of climate change on the direction of movement The average temperature of the earth’s surface will rise by up to 6.4 C by 2100, and species would need to migrate to higher latitudes and/or elevations following their climatic requirements (Pearson & Dawson, 2003; Raxworthy et al, 2008)
Summary
Global climate is changing rapidly because of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, with unexpected consequences (Solomon, 2007). The prediction of climate-driven shifts in species’ potential ranges under future climate scenarios relies on the application of species distribution models (SDMs) (Collevatti et al, 2013; Eskildsen et al, 2013). SDMs use current climate data to model species’ existing distributions, and forecast potential future distributions under various climate scenarios, assuming that species can follow future climate envelopes (Elith & Leathwick, 2009). These models are needed to understand the possible responses of species to future climate change and how current species’ ranges are determined by potential causal factors (Zhang et al, 2012). Ochoa-Ochoa et al (2012) showed that species with a low dispersal capability have high extinction rates, and that climate-driven population declines may be species- and region-specific
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