Niche modelling to guide conservation actions in France for the endangered crayfish Austropotamobius pallipes in relation to the invasive Pacifastacus leniusculus

Abstract

1. The white-clawed crayfish (Austropotamobius pallipes) is globally endangered due to the impacts of habitat modification and fragmentation, water pollution, climate change, and invasive species, particularly the signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus). These pressures have caused the decline of A. pallipes populations in Europe, demonstrating the importance of predicting the species' potential distribution under current and future conditions. Focusing on the watercourses of mainland France, we aimed to identify suitable areas for A. pallipes to guide the conservation of current populations and future introduction actions or protection measures.2. We applied ecological niche modelling to model the potential distribution of both A. pallipes and P. leniusculus and identified locations suitable for A. pallipes only.We also assessed the potential distribution of the species under two representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios: RCP 2.6 and RCP 8.5, respectively describing low-warming and high-warming conditions.3. We found that A. pallipes and P. leniusculus exploit equivalent niches in France.Despite this, under current conditions, about 5% of the study area simultaneously records a high suitability for A. pallipes and a low suitability for P. leniusculus and is therefore of significant conservation interest. This percentage remains relatively stable under RCP 2.6 for 2050 and 2100, but decreases to 2% under RCP 8.5 for 2100. 4. Ecological niche modelling can supply crucial guidance for conservation actions aimed at protecting endangered species at a national scale by identifying sites most suitable for protection and sites where climate change and invasive species constitute a threat. K E Y W O R D S ecological niche modelling, habitat suitability, climate change, conservation, niche overlap | 305 PRÉAU et Al. S U PP O RTI N G I N FO R M ATI O N Additional supporting information may be found online in the Supporting Information section at the end of the article. How to cite this article: Préau C, Nadeau I, Sellier Y, et al. Niche modelling to guide conservation actions in France for the endangered crayfish Austropotamobius pallipes in relation to the invasive Pacifastacus leniusculus. Freshwater Biology.

Integrating population genetics and species distribution modelling to guide conservation of the noble crayfish, Astacus astacus, in Croatia

“…Thus, our results indicate that climate change‐driven habitat loss represents a greater threat to A. astacus than the potential future distribution of the two studied NICS. A similar scenario was found for Austropotamobius pallipes in relation to the invasive P. leniusculus ( 30 , 53 , 54 , see below).…”

“…Sensitivity to climate change in freshwater taxa was proved to be higher than in terrestrial taxa 52 , and vulnerability of freshwater crayfish to climate change, as well as to NICS has been demonstrated in many studies 3 , 30 , 33 . To evaluate the impact of climate change and NICS on the endangered A. astacus , we performed SDM.…”

“…Species distribution models require georeferenced biodiversity observations (e.g., species occurrences) and geographic layers of environmental information (e.g., climate, land cover, soil attributes). This approach represents a useful tool for selecting suitable habitats for conservation actions, such as translocation, and selection of sites for protection, and at the same time taking into consideration impacts of invasive species and climate change on species and habitats 3 , 27 – 30 . Global climate changes impact the size and extent of areas that may potentially be inhabited by many species 31 , 32 .…”

Role of Maximum Entropy and Citizen Science to Study Habitat Suitability of Jacobin Cuckoo in Different Climate Change Scenarios

“…Similar reviews could be seen by Graham et al [21] and Suarez and Tsutsui [80] for additional uses of museum specimen data, which facilitated biodiversity policy and decision-making process [80]. Amongst the various other advantages, GBIF data can be used for biodiversity assessments [81], taxonomic revisions [82], compiling red lists of threatened species [83] and habitat suitability modelling [31,[84][85][86][87]. The latter is one of the prominent examples of climate change studies in which citizen science-based observations from the GBIF are being increasingly used [88][89][90][91][92][93][94][95].…”

Money Kills Native Ecosystems: European Crayfish as an Example

“…Ignoring the fact that Lake Tahoe is very deep and rather constant in water temperature compared to rather shallow and low volume water courses in Europe is a grave mistake, which was verified by a Swedish research group (e.g., Sandström et al, 2014), showing that one of the main variables explaining alien P. leniusculus population crashes was warmer water temperature. In this case, climate change would make matters even worse for alien P. leniusculus, while it might not help native A. astacus either (e.g., Capinha et al, 2013;Préau et al, 2020).…”