From Nucleotides to Satellite Imagery: Approaches to Identify and Manage the Invasive Pathogen Xylella fastidiosa and Its Insect Vectors in Europe

Qureshi

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

Reintroduction of endangered species is an effective and increasingly important conservation strategy once threats have been addressed. The greater one-horned rhinoceros and swamp buffalo have declined through historic hunting and habitat loss. We identify and evaluate available habitat across their historic range (India, Nepal, and Bhutan) for reintroducing viable populations. We used Species Distribution Models in Maxent to identify potential habitats and evaluated model-identified sites through field visits, interviews of wildlife managers, literature, and population-habitat viability analysis. We prioritize sites based on size, quality, protection, management effectiveness, biotic pressures, and potential of conflict with communities. Our results suggest that populations greater than 50 for rhinoceros and 100 for buffalo were less susceptible to extinction, and could withstand some poaching, especially if supplemented or managed as a metapopulation. We note some reluctance by managers to reintroduce rhinoceros due to high costs associated with subsequent protection. Our analysis subsequently prioritised Corbett and Valmiki, for rhino reintroduction and transboundary complexes of Chitwan-Parsa-Valmiki and Dudhwa-Pilibhit-Shuklaphanta-Bardia for buffalo reintroductions. Establishing new safety-nets and supplementing existing populations of these megaherbivores would ensure their continued survival and harness their beneficial effect on ecosystems and conspecifics like pygmy hog, hispid hare, swamp deer, hog deer, and Bengal florican.

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Feasibility of reintroducing grassland megaherbivores, the greater one-horned rhinoceros, and swamp buffalo within their historic global range

Qureshi

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

“…Species distribution models (hereinafter SDMs) have been globally recognized as a useful tool in nature conservation and management, for instance, to refine the threat status of a species [61][62][63][64]. When applied to distribution data, they can predict distributions across geographic landscapes by multiple responses, improve image analysis or remote-sensing in order to lead the search for poorly known species [65][66][67][68], thus providing perceptions into the species' habitat, range and abundance [69][70][71][72][73]. Furthermore, several authors like Elith and Leathwick [74], Benito et al [75], Fois et al [76], and De Luis et al [77,78] used SDMs based on the extant localities, as well as the respective current and future climate scenarios to predict the possible variation in the environmental niche of certain plant species, inferring ecological and evolutionary insights.…”

Section: Species Distribution Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Relict Ecosystem of Maytenus senegalensis subsp. europaea in an Agricultural Landscape: Past, Present and Future Scenarios

Mendoza-Fernández

Martínez-Hernández

Salmerón-Sánchez

et al. 2020

Land

Maytenus senegalensis subsp. europaea is a shrub belonging to the Celastraceae family, whose only European populations are distributed discontinuously along the south-eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula, forming plant communities with great ecological value, unique in Europe. As it is an endangered species that makes up plant communities with great palaeoecological significance, the development of species distribution models is of major interest under different climatic scenarios, past, present and future, based on the fact that the climate could play a relevant role in the distribution of this species, as well as in the conformation of the communities in which it is integrated. Palaeoecological models were generated for the Maximum Interglacial, Last Maximum Glacial and Middle Holocene periods. The results obtained showed that the widest distribution of this species, and the maximum suitability of its habitat, occurred during the Last Glacial Maximum, when the temperatures of the peninsular southeast were not as contrasting as those of the rest of the European continent and were favored by higher rainfall. Under these conditions, large territories could act as shelters during the glacial period, a hypothesis reflected in the model’s results for this period, which exhibit a further expansion of M. europaea’s ecological niche. The future projection of models in around 2070, for four Representative Concentration Pathways according to the fifth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, showed that the most favorable areas for this species would be Campo de Dalías (southern portion of Almería province) as it presents the bioclimatic characteristics of greater adjustment to M. europaea’s ecological niche model. Currently, some of the largest specimens of the species survive in the agricultural landscapes in the southern Spain. These areas are almost totally destroyed and heavily altered by intensive agriculture greenhouses, also causing a severe fragmentation of the habitat, which implies a prospective extinction scenario in the near future.

“…changes of species distributions under climate change, while it has been suggested to perform best with few species records [25][26][27][28]. To characterize the species distributions of the study area, 21 environmental predictors were selected to assess species distributions, including 19 bioclimatic variables [29], the slope, and the soil types.…”

Section: Predicting Species Distributions Maxent Model Has Been Widementioning

confidence: 99%

Planning priority conservation areas for biodiversity under climate change in topographically complex areas: A case study in Sichuan province, China

et al. 2020

PLoS ONE

Identifying priority conservation areas plays a significant role in conserving biodiversity under climate change, but uncertainties create challenges for conservation planning. To reduce uncertainties in the conservation planning framework, we developed an adaptation index to assess the effect of topographic complexity on species adaptation to climate change, which was incorporated into the conservation framework as conservation costs. Meanwhile, the species distributions were predicted by the Maxent model, and the priority conservation areas were optimized during different periods in Sichuan province by the Marxan model. Our results showed that the effect of topographic complexity was critical for species adaptation, but the adaptation index decreased with the temperature increase. Based on the conservation targets and costs, the distributions of priority conservation areas were mainly concentrated in mountainous areas around the Sichuan Basin where may be robust to the adaptation to climate change. In the future, the distributions of priority conservation areas had no evident changes, accounting for about 26% and 28% of the study areas. Moreover, most species habitats could be conserved in terms of conservation targets in these priority conservation areas. Therefore, our approach could achieve biodiversity conservation goals and be highly practical. More importantly, quantifying the effect of topography also is critical for options for planning conservation areas in response to climate change.