Changes In Geographic Range Research Articles

Impacts of Climate Change on the Biogeography and Ecological Structure of Zelkova schneideriana Hand.-Mazz. in China.

This study utilized the platform for ensemble forecasting of species distributions, biomod2, to predict and quantitatively analyze the distribution changes of Zelkova schneideriana Hand.-Mazz. under different climate scenarios (SSP1-2.6 and SSP5-8.5) based on climate and land-use data. This study evaluated the geographic range changes in future distribution areas and the results indicated that, under both SSP1-2.6 and SSP5-8.5 scenarios, the distribution area of Zelkova schneideriana would be reduced, showing a trend towards migration to higher latitudes and elevations. Particularly, in the more extreme SSP5-8.5 scenario, the contraction of the distribution area was more pronounced, accompanied by more significant migration characteristics. Furthermore, the ecological structure within the distribution area of Zelkova schneideriana also experienced significant changes, with an increasing degree of fragmentation. The variables of Bio6 (minimum temperature of the coldest month), Bio2 (mean diurnal temperature range), Bio15 (precipitation seasonality), and elevation exhibited important influences on the distribution of Zelkova schneideriana, with temperature being particularly significant. Changes in land use, especially the conversion of cropland, had a significant impact on the species' habitat. These research findings highlight the distributional pressures faced by Zelkova schneideriana in the future, emphasizing the crucial need for targeted conservation measures to protect this species and similar organisms.

Climate and pest interactions pose a cross-landscape management challenge to soil and water conservation

Climate change and biological invasions by plant pests (weeds), agriculture and forest insect pests (insects), and microbial pests (plant pathogens) are complex interactive components of global environmental change. The influence of pest distribution and prevalence across landscapes are challenging the conservation and sustainability of natural resources, agricultural production, native biological diversity, and the valuable ecosystem services they provide (Huenneke 1997; Vitousek 1997; Juroszek and von Tiedemann 2013; Ziska and Dukes 2014). Since 2000, numerous scientific studies indicate accelerating climate change is posing substantial risks to natural and managed systems in North America (IPPC 2022). Intensified droughts, large-scale wildfires, and increased demands for limited surface and groundwater water supplies in arid regions are threatening the sustainability of irrigated agriculture and contributing to economic losses (Stewart et al. 2020), while extreme rainfall events are contributing to severe riverine and urban flooding across the United States. Climate change affects crops, rangelands, forests, and natural areas directly through the immediate effects of temperature, precipitation, and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels and thereby impacts production and management systems. These effects are amplified by climate-driven increases in weed, insect, and plant pathogen problems that further complicate related factors such as water, nutrient, and pest management (Walthall et al. 2013). Changing climates also alter physiological, ecological, and evolutionary processes that can support increased establishment, invasiveness, local spread, and geographic range changes of weeds, insects, and plant pathogens (Chidawanyika et al. 2019; Gallego-Tevár et al. 2019; Ziska et al. 2019) that have cascading effects on soil and water quality, and human livelihoods. Thus, a need exists for cross-habitat and landscape/watershed-scale perspectives to improve understanding of mechanisms underlying pest fitness and impacts within and across integrated systems.

Multi‐decadal land use impacts across the vast range of an iconic threatened species

AbstractAimTo explore spatiotemporal changes in Hyacinth Macaw Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus distribution and the impacts of land use change over 25 years, across its vast range in central/eastern South America.LocationBrazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, South America, covering almost 3 million km2.MethodsWe use a novel, multi‐temporal species distribution model, to combine both year‐specific occurrence records and land use/cover data in a single model that is subsequently projected over a land cover time series. We investigate changes in geographic range over 25 years and potential drivers of range extent at multiple spatial scales (10 and 30 km) and time‐lags (current and 10 years previously). We also assess protected area coverage and impacts from degazettement within the remaining range and highlight priority areas to search for undiscovered populations.ResultsThe modelled range of the species increased by 75,000 km2 to over 500,000 km2 between 1995 and 2019, during which period agriculture and pasture increased by 600,000 km2 within the species' extent of occurrence. Habitat suitability was influenced most strongly by distribution of palms, forest cover and changes in pasture over 10 years and usually by predictors measured at larger spatial scales. Just 8% of the macaw's modelled range falls within protected areas, and more than 20,500 km2 of protected areas overlapping with the range have been degazetted in the last 40 years. We highlight key areas to search for undiscovered populations in under‐sampled and remote areas, especially led by community citizen science initiatives involving indigenous groups and protected area staff.Main conclusionsNovel modelling methods, combining multi‐temporal occurrence records and land cover data, appropriate for small sample sizes per year, have revealed habitat dynamics and changes to the range of this threatened species over 25 years. The method may have wide applicability for a range of species, including elusive and poorly studied species.

The Dynamics of Diachronous Extinction Associated With Climatic Deterioration Near the Neogene/Quaternary Boundary

AbstractTo predict extinction, we must understand the processes leading to terminal population decline. Once a critical threshold of population size is reached, small environmental perturbations can push a species over the cliff‐edge to extinction, so the main drivers of extinction are the factors that cause the initial reduction in population size. Most studies of population decline leading up to extinction focus on modern species in a human‐dominated world. The drivers of population decline leading to non‐human mediated extinctions are less well known but changes in climate are arguably the most widely invoked mechanism. Here, we report data on >16,000 individuals of the planktonic foraminifer Globoconella puncticulata from six sites in the Atlantic Ocean along an 83 degree‐long latitudinal transect, over a 600,000‐years interval leading up to the species’ global extinction during the late Pliocene‐earliest Pleistocene intensification of Northern Hemisphere glaciation. We show changes in geographic range, abundance, and body size. We find that populations do not follow a North‐to‐South sequence in extinction as Earth cooled and developed large ice sheets in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. Instead, our results suggest that (a) populations are differentially adapted to local environmental conditions such as nutrient availability, (b) population dynamics in core populations differ from those at the edge of their range, and (c) individual population responses to external pressures are essential to understanding the drivers of global extinction. Our study demonstrates the potential to transform our understanding of extinction dynamics through spatially replicated sampling of the highly resolved marine microfossil record.

Mammal species occupy different climates following the expansion of human impacts

Cities and agricultural fields encroach on the most fertile, habitable terrestrial landscapes, fundamentally altering global ecosystems. Today, 75% of terrestrial ecosystems are considerably altered by human activities, and landscape transformation continues to accelerate. Human impacts are one of the major drivers of the current biodiversity crisis, and they have had unprecedented consequences on ecosystem function and rates of species extinctions for thousands of years. Here we use the fossil record to investigate whether changes in geographic range that could result from human impacts have altered the climatic niches of 46 species covering six mammal orders within the contiguous United States. Sixty-seven percent of the studied mammals have significantly different climatic niches today than they did before the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Niches changed the most in the portions of the range that overlap with human-impacted landscapes. Whether by forcible elimination/introduction or more indirect means, large-bodied dietary specialists have been extirpated from climatic envelopes that characterize human-impacted areas, whereas smaller, generalist mammals have been facilitated, colonizing these same areas of the climatic space. Importantly, the climates where we find mammals today do not necessarily represent their past habitats. Without mitigation, as we move further into the Anthropocene, we can anticipate a low standing biodiversity dominated by small, generalist mammals.

GalliForm, a database of Galliformes occurrence records from the Indo-Malay and Palaearctic, 1800\u20132008

Historical as well as current species distribution data are needed to track changes in biodiversity. Species distribution data are found in a variety of sources, each of which has its own distinct bias toward certain taxa, time periods or places. We present GalliForm, a database that comprises 186687 galliform occurrence records linked to 118907 localities in Europe and Asia. Records were derived from museums, peer-reviewed and grey literature, unpublished field notes, diaries and correspondence, banding records, atlas records and online birding trip reports. We describe data collection processes, georeferencing methods and quality-control procedures. This database has underpinned several peer-reviewed studies, investigating spatial and temporal bias in biodiversity data, species’ geographic range changes and local extirpation patterns. In our rapidly changing world, an understanding of long-term change in species’ distributions is key to predicting future impacts of threatening processes such as land use change, over-exploitation of species and climate change. This database, its historical aspect in particular, provides a valuable source of information for further studies in macroecology and biodiversity conservation.

Giraffe taxonomy, geographic distribution and conservation

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Quantifying species’ geographic range changes: conceptual and statistical issues

AbstractGeographic range is an important metric used to evaluate species’ environmental relationships. Additionally, a very small or rapidly shrinking range may indicate elevated extinction risk. However, a species does not fully occupy its range in the way a lake fills a basin and is instead best thought of as a cloud of points rather than an area per se. Samples of species presence or abundance are subject to issues of both inherent detectability and stochastic detectability due to sample locations in space and time. In addition, populations fluctuate in space and time. These factors mean that the population centroid, range area, and range margin are not deterministic. Examples from the literature demonstrate that multidirectional range changes are ubiquitous due to stochastic effects. Confounding factors, particularly due to human activities such as land use change, also complicate inference about range changes. Herein, statistical tests for centroid and margin changes in the context of stochastic fluctuations of clouds of points and sample error are demonstrated. Scale‐dependent area analysis and tests for range area change are presented along with tests for responses at the community level (suites of species). This test allows for evaluation of change in spatial pattern for patchy populations with or without outliers. Geographic range change can reliably be tested with statistics based on distributions of clouds of observed points rather than bounded areas per se, if potential confounding is taken into account.

Driving forces for changes in geographic range of cattle ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) in Africa: A review

Ticks are the most important external parasites of cattle and are known to transmit more pathogens than any other group of arthropods worldwide. About 80% of the world cattle population is at risk of ticks and tick-borne diseases, causing a global annual loss of $US22–30 billion. In Africa, the impact of ticks is ranked high, and they transmit diseases such as cowdriosis, anaplasmosis, bovine babesiosis and theileriosis. A range expansion of ixodid ticks has been observed in Africa, in particular for the genera Amblyomma and Rhipicephalus , which contribute greatly to cattle loss owing to morbidity and mortality. Distributional changes in ticks can lead to the emergence or re-emergence of infectious and parasitic diseases. Climate change is frequently invoked as the primary cause of tick distribution, but it is not the only factor. Human lifestyle changes, including transportation of livestock within countries, have promoted the introduction of new tick species and the diseases they transmit. One such example is the spread of the Asian cattle tick Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus to West Africa. Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus was recorded for the first time in Namibia and was probably introduced into Namibia from South Africa. Likewise, Amblyomma variegatum , the vector of heartwater disease, has the largest distribution in Africa. Its spread is outside its native range and it is considered the second most invasive tick species after R. (B.) microplus on the continent. Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus is a one-host tick that is reported to be resistant to conventional acaricides and this contributes largely to its spread into non-endemic areas. Keywords: Acaricide resistance, climate change, epidemiology, range expansion, tick ecology

Breeding systems in Balsaminaceae in relation to pollen/ovule ratio, pollination syndromes, life history and climate zone.

Pollen/ovule (P/O) ratios are often used as proxy for breeding systems. Here, we investigate the relations between breeding systems and P/O ratios, pollination syndromes, life history and climate zone in Balsaminaceae. We conducted controlled breeding system experiments (autonomous and active self-pollination and outcrossing tests) for 65 Balsaminaceae species, analysed pollen grain and ovule numbers and evaluated the results in combination with data on pollination syndrome, life history and climate zone on a phylogenetic basis. Based on fruit set, we assigned three breeding systems: autogamy, self-compatibility and self-incompatibility. Self-pollination led to lower fruit set than outcrossing. We neither found significant P/O differences between breeding systems nor between pollination syndromes. However, the numbers of pollen grains and ovules per flower were significantly lower in autogamous species, but pollen grain and ovule numbers did not differ between most pollination syndromes. Finally, we found no relation between breeding system and climate zone, but a relation between climate zone and life history. In Balsaminaceae reproductive traits can change under resource or pollinator limitation, leading to the evolution of autogamy, but are evolutionary rather constant and not under strong selection pressure by pollinator guild and geographic range changes. Colonisation of temperate regions, however, is correlated with transitions towards annual life history. Pollen/ovule-ratios, commonly accepted as good indicators of breeding system, have a low predictive value in Balsaminaceae. In the absence of experimental data on breeding system, additional floral traits (overall pollen grain and ovule number, traits of floral morphology) may be used as proxies.

Range contraction and increasing isolation of a polar bear subpopulation in an era of sea-ice loss.

Climate change is expected to result in range shifts and habitat fragmentation for many species. In the Arctic, loss of sea ice will reduce barriers to dispersal or eliminate movement corridors, resulting in increased connectivity or geographic isolation with sweeping implications for conservation. We used satellite telemetry, data from individually marked animals (research and harvest), and microsatellite genetic data to examine changes in geographic range, emigration, and interpopulation connectivity of the Baffin Bay (BB) polar bear (Ursus maritimus) subpopulation over a 25‐year period of sea‐ice loss. Satellite telemetry collected from n = 43 (1991–1995) and 38 (2009–2015) adult females revealed a significant contraction in subpopulation range size (95% bivariate normal kernel range) in most months and seasons, with the most marked reduction being a 70% decline in summer from 716,000 km2 (SE 58,000) to 211,000 km2 (SE 23,000) (p < .001). Between the 1990s and 2000s, there was a significant shift northward during the on‐ice seasons (2.6° shift in winter median latitude, 1.1° shift in spring median latitude) and a significant range contraction in the ice‐free summers. Bears in the 2000s were less likely to leave BB, with significant reductions in the numbers of bears moving into Davis Strait (DS) in winter and Lancaster Sound (LS) in summer. Harvest recoveries suggested both short and long‐term fidelity to BB remained high over both periods (83–99% of marked bears remained in BB). Genetic analyses using eight polymorphic microsatellites confirmed a previously documented differentiation between BB, DS, and LS; yet weakly differentiated BB from Kane Basin (KB) for the first time. Our results provide the first multiple lines of evidence for an increasingly geographically and functionally isolated subpopulation of polar bears in the context of long‐term sea‐ice loss. This may be indicative of future patterns for other polar bear subpopulations under climate change.

Uncertainty in identifying local extinctions: the distribution of missing data and its effects on biodiversity measures.

Identifying local extinctions is integral to estimating species richness and geographic range changes and informing extinction risk assessments. However, the species occurrence records underpinning these estimates are frequently compromised by a lack of recorded species absences making it impossible to distinguish between local extinction and lack of survey effort—for a rigorously compiled database of European and Asian Galliformes, approximately 40% of half-degree cells contain records from before but not after 1980. We investigate the distribution of these cells, finding differences between the Palaearctic (forests, low mean human influence index (HII), outside protected areas (PAs)) and Indo-Malaya (grassland, high mean HII, outside PAs). Such cells also occur more in less peaceful countries. We show that different interpretations of these cells can lead to large over/under-estimations of species richness and extent of occurrences, potentially misleading prioritization and extinction risk assessment schemes. To avoid mistakes, local extinctions inferred from sightings records need to account for the history of survey effort in a locality.

Use and application of range mapping in assessing extinction risk in Canada

ABSTRACTWhen a species potentially at risk of extinction is considered for legally protected status, changes in geographic range over time are often evaluated and utilized in listing decisions. Range changes are also used to guide conservation management decisions. Although changes in geographic range may provide information relevant to conservation decisions, many factors affect estimates of geographic range. We investigated how geographic range change is estimated and used in the listing process. We evaluated all terrestrial vertebrates in Canada whose assessment as threatened or endangered was based at least partially on small range or range reduction. The 39 cases of birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians (including 2 populations of 1 species) used a variety of historical and recent data, including natural history archives, special surveys, and standardized surveys. Little mention was made in the reports of the methods used for range delineation or the limitations of geographic range maps. Of the 39 cases listed by the reports as being threatened or endangered in Canada at least in part due to geographic range, 32 (82%) had ≤10% of their current global range in Canada (i.e., most had wide ranges in the United States), resulting in the listing of species with marginal and sometimes nonviable populations within Canada even when the global population was not at risk. We identify several ways that listing decisions could be improved. © 2015 The Wildlife Society.

The effect of range changes on the functional turnover, structure and diversity of bird assemblages under future climate scenarios.

Animal assemblages fulfill a critical set of ecological functions for ecosystems that may be altered substantially as climate change-induced distribution changes lead to community disaggregation and reassembly. We combine species and community perspectives to assess the consequences of projected geographic range changes for the diverse functional attributes of avian assemblages worldwide. Assemblage functional structure is projected to change highly unevenly across space. These differences arise from both changes in the number of species and changes in species' relative local functional redundancy or distinctness. They sometimes result in substantial losses of functional diversity that could have severe consequences for ecosystem health. Range expansions may counter functional losses in high-latitude regions, but offer little compensation in many tropical and subtropical biomes. Future management of local community function and ecosystem services thus relies on understanding the global dynamics of species distributions and multiscale approaches that include the biogeographic context of species traits.

A new dermatemydid (Testudines, Kinosternoidea) from the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, Willwood Formation, southeastern Bighorn Basin, Wyoming

ABSTRACTGomphochelys nanus, new genus and species, is described from the earliest Wasatchian (biohorizon Wa 0; ∼55.8 Ma) of the southeastern Bighorn Basin, Washakie County, Wyoming. The new taxon represents the only known dermatemydid from the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) interval and extends the lineage back from previous records by approximately 2 million years. Gomphochelys nanus has a thick tricarinate carapace and differs from other dermatemydids in attaining a smaller adult body size, having reduced plastral features, a posteriorly situated gular–humeral sulcus, an acarinate pygal, and thick shortened peripherals. Reexamination of previously described fossil dermatemydids suggests that the taxa Baptemys tricarinata and Kallistira costilata are junior synonyms of the middle–late Wasatchian Notomorpha garmanii, and Baptemys fluviatilis is likely a junior synonym of Baptemys wyomingensis. Gomphochelys nanus is a stem dermatemydid that is similar to N. garmanii but differs in possessing symplesiomorphies with the Late Cretaceous–Paleocene genera Agomphus and Hoplochelys. Aspects of shell morphology suggest that G. nanus was a commensurate swimmer and bottom-walker like extant Dermatemys and Staurotypus. The presence of a dermatemydid (a tropically distributed clade) in the southeastern Bighorn Basin during the PETM (when global temperatures increased by 5°C–10°C over a period of ∼60 ky) further supports the hypothesis that climate was megathermal in the region during this interval and is consistent with previously documented geographic range changes in both plants and animals. Dermatemydids disappear from the fossil record at the end of the PETM and don't reemerge until the next warming event, Eocene Thermal Maximum 2.http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:19A98079-5CAD-4BC5-8C21-2810AA576D98 SUPPLEMENTAL DATA—Supplemental materials are available for this article for free at www.tandfonline.com/UJVP

Conservation paleobiology needs phylogenetic methods

We address several central concerns of conservation paleobiology, namely, the inference of geographic ranges of ancestral and ancient species, the changes in geographic range under climate change, and the associated question of inferring the environmental preferences of ancestral lineages and how they have evolved over geological time. We will show why these questions might be crucial for making better projections of geographic range under future climate change scenarios, and for assessing such scenarios, as well as assessing comparisons between predicted and observed geographic ranges of ancient taxa. We review two major bodies of literature and modelling techniques, namely phylogenetic biogeography – the historical biogeography of lineage presence and absence in large, discrete regions, inferred on phylogenetic trees – and phylogenetic ancestral niche estimation, which utilizes phylogenetic comparative methods to understand temporal changes in species environmental niches and the resulting change in their geographic distributions due to niche evolution, geologic changes, and climatic changes. We suggest that many of the limitations in each of the currently available methods could be ameliorated by combining them, such that coarse‐scale biogeographic history, evolution of environmental niche preferences on a phylogenetic tree, the evolutionary model for these changes, and modern species' environmental niche models are all co‐estimated in formal joint inference framework. We acknowledge that this goal is extremely ambitious, but it is likely to have large payoffs, not just for conservation paleobiology but even for purely neobiological niche modelling studies that typically leave out information about phylogenetic relationship and historical biogeography, and thus, may often conflate several non‐environmental factors with the estimation of species' environmental niches.

Pyrenean ptarmigans decline under climatic and human influences through the Holocene.

In Europe, the Quaternary is characterized by climatic fluctuations known to have led to many cycles of contraction and expansion of species geographical ranges. In addition, during the Holocene, historical changes in human occupation such as colonization or abandonment of traditional land uses can also affect habitats. These climatically or anthropically induced geographic range changes are expected to produce considerable effective population size change, measurable in terms of genetic diversity and organization. The rock ptarmigan (Lagopus muta) is a small-bodied grouse occurring throughout Northern hemispheric arctic and alpine tundra. This species is not considered threatened at a continental scale, but the populations in the Pyrenees are of concern because of their small population size, geographical isolation and low genetic diversity. Here, we used 11 microsatellites to investigate genetic variations and differentiations and infer the overall demographic history of Pyrenean rock ptarmigan populations. The low genetic variability found in these populations has been previously thought to be the result of a bottleneck that occurred following the last glacial maximum (i.e., 10,000 years ago) or more recently (i.e., during the last 200 years). Our results clearly indicate a major bottleneck affecting the populations in the last tenth of the Holocene. We discuss how this decline can be explained by a combination of unfavorable and successive events that increased the degree of habitat fragmentation.

Quantifying likely cetacean range shifts in response to global climatic change: implications for conservation strategies in a changing world

As with many other taxa, climate change is expected to result in geographic range shifts of cetacean species as they track changes in temperature to remain within their ecological niches. Such changes in geographic range could have implications for the conservation and man- agement of cetaceans. Here, we propose a bioclimatic envelope modelling approach for providing quantitative predictions of how the ranges of cetacean species may respond to changing water temperatures. This combines predictions from habitat niche and 'thermal' niche models for an individual species to determine probable geographic range under specific climatic conditions. However, if this approach is to be used to inform conservation strategies, it is essential that the ability to predict responses to environmental change is validated beyond the period of data collec- tion used to construct the models. Therefore, in addition to validation of modelled current range, we included a step to validate the models' ability to predict previous changes in range over time in response to climatic changes using independent data. We demonstrate this approach using common dolphin Delphinus delphis data from the Northeast Atlantic. The combined model was constructed with data collected between 1980 and 2007, and validated using independent distrib- utional records collected between 1930 and 2006. The validated model was then applied to predict future range between 2010 and 2069, based on projected water temperatures. Thus, the modelling approach is shown to provide the type of information required to help ensure that conservation and management strategies remain effective in the face of a changing climate.

Taxonomic and Geographic Patterns of Decline for Threatened and Endangered Species in the United States

Species listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (i.e., listed species) have declined to the point that the probability of their extinction is high. The decline of these species, however, may manifest itself in different ways, including reductions in geographic range, number of populations, or overall abundance. Understanding the pattern of decline can help managers assess extinction probability and define recovery objectives. Although quantitative data on changes in geographic range, number of populations, and abundance usually do not exist for listed species, more often qualitative data can be obtained. We used qualitative data in recovery plans for federally listed species to determine whether each listed species declined in range size, number of populations, or abundance relative to historical levels. We calculated the proportion of listed species in each state (or equivalent) that declined in each of those ways. Nearly all listed species declined in abundance, and range size or number of populations declined in approximately 80% of species for which those data were available. Patterns of decline, however, differed taxonomically and geographically. Declines in range were more common among vertebrates than plants, whereas population extirpations were more common among plants. Invertebrates had high incidence of range and population declines. Narrowly distributed plants and invertebrates may be subject to acute threats that may result in population extirpations, whereas vertebrates may be affected by chronic threats that reduce the extent and size of populations. Additionally, in the eastern United States and U.S. coastal areas, where the level of land conversion is high, a greater percentage of species' ranges declined and more populations were extirpated than in other areas. Species in the Southwest, especially plants, had fewer range and population declines than other areas. Such relations may help in the selection of species' recovery criteria.

Climate change and its impact on Australia's avifauna

Relative to the northern hemisphere, little is known about the effect of climate change on southern hemisphere birds, although the impact could be significant. Here we review the effects of climate change on birds that have been documented or predicted, with particular reference to Australian species. Potential impacts include changes in geographic range, movement patterns, morphology, physiology, abundance, phenology and community composition. The evidence suggests that these changes are already happening, both overseas and in Australia, but more research is needed to determine the extent of these impacts and how to conserve birds in the face of climate change. Management options include promoting adaptation and resilience, intensive management of sensitive species, and improved planning for mitigation techniques and monitoring.