European Ground Squirrels at the Edge: Current Distribution Status and Anticipated Impact of Climate on Europe’s Southernmost Population

Abstract

The European ground squirrel (Spermophilus citellus) is an endangered semifossorial small mammal of grassland/agricultural ecosystems. In the last few decades, the species’ population has declined throughout its range in Europe. The Greek populations represent the southernmost limit of the species’ range and are notably small, scattered, and located mainly in human-modified areas. The goal of the present research is to understand the environmental and anthropogenic variables associated with its distribution in the Mediterranean habitats, assess possible drivers of observed local extinctions, and propose conservation and land-use management actions in light of near-future climate change scenarios. We used presence records since 2000 across all known populations (107 colonies) and maximum entropy conditional probability models (MaxEnt) to calculate both the habitat suitability (bioclimatic variables) and habitat availability (anthropogenic/land-use variables) within the European ground squirrel’s historical range in northern Greece. We report a projected 39% to 94.3% decrease in habitat suitability by 2040–2060 due to climate change. Based on our findings, we provide guidance by proposing nascent conservation actions to protect the few existing colonies in Greece via improved land management practices and identify in situ climate refugia that could be prioritized as sites for future reintroductions.

Long term (1985–2018) changes of the habitat suitability of European souslik assessed by Maxent modelling based on Landsat satellite imagery – a case study from a mountain landscape of Central Bulgaria

“…It can be expected that the conditions in the mountains will become increasingly unfavourable for the souslik. They will approach the current ones in the lower parts of the country and in the southernmost parts of the souslik's range, where population decline is already an ongoing process, largely related to global warming (Rammou et al 2022). This can also be predicted based on the bell-shaped response curves (Fig.…”

Solanum elaeagnifolium Cav. (Solanales: Solanaceae) presence confirmed in Portugal

“…The seeds of S. elaeagnifolium have been reported to be distributed by animal movement, for example by sheep (Bouhache & Gbèhounou, 2014), ground squirrels (Rammou et al, 2022) and gulls (Martín‐Vélez et al, 2022). Contaminated soils and seeds, agricultural machinery and irrigation channels have also been blamed for the invasiveness of S. elaeagnifolium (Chafik et al, 2013; Qasem, 2014).…”

Rise and fall: Results of a multidisciplinary study and 5-year long monitoring of conservation translocation of the European ground squirrel

“…Environmental conditions, like harsh weather, can cause difficulties in nearly 15% of the translocations ( Berger‐Tal et al 2020 ). In general, European ground squirrels seem to prefer areas with low variation in precipitation seasonality ( Rammou et al 2022 ), whereas high precipitation values can negatively affect the population densities ( Zaharia et al 2016 ). Other ground squirrel species also show a similar dependence on weather conditions.…”