Potential impact of climate change on the distribution of some selected legumes in Cameroon and adjoining Nigeria border

Abstract

Organismal response to climate change may affect long-term conservation plans.However, how climate change affects the distribution and conservation status of some plant species is still being debated. To test this, we selected four economically important legume species (Adenocarpus mannii, Afzelia bella, Afzelia bipindensis and Baphia nitida) from the Nigeria-Cameroon border in West Africa. The link between climate change and the species distribution range was predicted using the ensemble species distribution model (ESDM). Our analyses revealed the precipitation of the coldest period (50%) and precipitation of the driest period (40%) as the most important environmental variables influencing the distribution of the studied species. The projection shows independent habitat shifts (gain/loss) of the species consequent to climate change in the future (2050 and 2070). Despite the restricted coverage of occupancy for the selected species, our estimated species distribution range from the ESDM agrees with the current IUCN conservation status (least concern) for A. mannii. Hence, our results suggest that species distribution modelling at local habitats could yield insights into global species conservation assessments. Our findings highlighted the need for conservation through regulated land use in Dibombari highland, Cameroon Mountain (Cameroon) and the forests around Oban hills in Nigeria due to projected high species loss consequent to climate change. Thus, we recommend ecological niche modelling with extensive field surveys across the entire geographic range of these species for robust inferences that allow comparisons with the IUCN status.

Climate warming will affect the range dynamics of East Asian Meehania species: A maximum entropy approach.

“…It is widely established that global climate change will alter species' geographic distributions globally (Salako et al, 2021;Oyebanji et al, 2021;Ngarega et al, 2022). Knowledge of these changes in the distribution of species is especially crucial for herbaceous species.…”

Bioclimatic Modeling of Current Geographic Distribution and Future Range Shifts of Selected Edible Mushrooms in Nigeria

“…The widespread consensus is that worldwide climate change will modify the global geographic distributions of species (Salako et al, 2021;Oyebanji et al, 2021;Ngarega et al, 2022). This research demonstrates that ecological niche models (ENMs) serve as dependable instruments for examining and comprehending the factors impacting the potential distribution of species across various levels (Tiamiyu et al, 2021;Yan et al, 2022).…”

Assessment of Multiple Model Algorithms to Predict Earthworm Geographic Distribution Range and Biodiversity in Germany: implications for soil-monitoring and species-conservation needs

“…All modelling procedures were performed in the R programming language version 0.1.19, 2021 (R Core Team 2021). As issues of predictor autocorrelation and multicollinearity affect model performance and accuracy (Guisan & Zimmermann 2000, Mod et al 2016Salako 2021), during model calibration signi cant and independent environmental predictor variables were selected. For this, we rst used principal component analysis (PCA) and Pearson correlation to identify autocorrelation among predictors.…”