Impacts of Future Climate Change on the Distribution of Typical Endangered Bird Species in Beijing

Abstract

Understanding the habitat needs of endangered bird species in the context of dynamic climate change is essential for guiding the design of existing conservation areas. The Maximum Entropy Model (MaxEnt) was used to predict the suitable habitats of 18 typical endangered birds in the “Key Protected Wildlife List of Beijing Municipality”, 19 climatic variables from 2041 to 2060, and 8 habitat environment variables affecting the distribution of birds were comprehensively analysed. SPSS 26 was utilised to evaluate the environmental variables incorporated into the MaxEnt model, while ArcGIS was utilised to process the prediction results. The dependability of the method was validated by the reliability of the model (mean AUC value of 0.93 and standard deviation of 0.045 for the training set; mean AUC value of 0.88 and standard deviation of 0.079 for the test set). The most significant variables, according to the jackknife test, were yearly precipitation (6.415%), precipitation in the heaviest month (5.390%), annual temperature range (2.945%), distance to water sources (29.330%), and the normalised vegetation index (11.775%). The results suggest that highly suitable habitats cover 18.67% of the region (3064.14 km2), while unsuitable habitats cover 10.61% (1741.101 km2). Formal protection and management measures for the study objects were advised based on the prediction results.