Ecological niche modelling predicts significant impacts of future climate change on two endemic rodents in eastern Africa

Abstract

The impact of climate change on rodents is well studied, however, many of these studies are restricted to the Americas. Small- to medium-sized rodents, especially murids, are restricted in their home range and microclimatic niche breadth, and are known to be more sensitive to changes in bioclimatic conditions over time. We analyzed the effect of future climatic scenarios in the near and distant future, using two global climate models (CanESM5 and MIROC-ES2L) for two shared socio-economic pathways (SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5), on two eastern Africa endemic small-bodied mice: Stenocephalemys albipes and Mastomys awashensis. Our results indicate that while S. albipes showed increases in area of climatic suitability in the future, M. awashensis is predicted to suffer severe decline in the area of its fundamental niche.