Modeling the effects of climate change on the geographic distribution of the wild sheep in Lorestan Province, Iran

Document Type : Animal environment

Authors

1 Department of Fisheries and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Natural Resources and Earth Sciences, Shahrekord University, Shahrekord, Iran

2 Department of Nature Engineering, Faculty of Natural Resources and Earth Sciences, Shahrekord University, Shahrekord, Iran

3 Faculty of Natural Resources, Sari Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University, Sari, Iran

4 Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Natural Resources and Earth Sciences, University of Kashan, Kashan, Iran

Abstract

Habitat loss is the main threat to the endangered populations of wildlife and anthropogenic climate change is expected to exacerbate this. Here, we identify suitable habitats of wild sheep in Lorestan Province and how these habitats are affected by the climate change scenarios, in order to address conservation and management efforts. The ensemble modeling based on six species distribution models (SDMs) was used to predict current and future distributions, in response to the changing climate. Our models predicted that 7.4% of the 28,294 km2 study area is currently suitable habitat for the species. Land cover, temperature seasonality (bio4), distance to spring, human footprint and distance to escape terrain made the highest contribution (80%) to the distribution model performance. Findings show that about 62.14 (RCP4.5) to 76.97% (RCP8.5) of present suitable habitat would be lost by 2050 due to climate change under four future representative concentration pathways within BCC-CSM1-1 general circulation model. In contrast, habitat gains observed for models were 5.89 (RCP8.5) to 17.01% (RCP4.5). Our findings could provide useful information for conservation planning to protect and restore wild sheep populations.

Keywords

References

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Journal of Animal Environment
Volume 12, Issue 3
June 2020
Pages 59-68

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