Testing instead of assuming the importance of land use change scenarios to model species distributions under climate change

Abstract

Aim Species distribution models often assume a changing climate (dynamic climate variables) but unchanged land use (static land use variables) to estimate future species distribution shifts. However, scenarios of projected land use change are available to calculate dynamic land use variables. Surprisingly, the importance of using dynamic instead of static land use variables when projecting potential future species distributions under climate change remains largely unexplored. We tested whether the joint inclusion of land use and climate change scenarios altered the projection of future species distribution compared with the classical approach assuming unchanged land use. Location Europe Methods We used land use and climate change scenarios to estimate the future distribution of a butterfly species (Lycaena dispar) according to different perspectives of projected environmental change: (1) land use change (dynamic land use and static climate variables), (2) climate change (static land use and dynamic climate variables) and (3) global change (dynamic land use and climate variables). As the importance of land use variables is known to depend on the spatial resolution of the models, we built them across a range of resolutions (50 km, 10 km and 5 km) to examine the resolution‐dependent relevance of using dynamic instead of static variables. Results For each resolution, the projected distribution changes were unaltered when using dynamic instead of static land use variables in the models. It was mainly due to the low thematic resolution of the land use change scenarios that include only few dynamic variables. Main conclusions Even at fine spatial resolution (5 km), the available land use change scenarios poorly represent habitat suitability for the species. Hence, they may be of limited support to estimate future species distributions. Instead of supporting the assumption of unchanged future land use, our results plea for an improvement of the thematic resolution of land use change scenarios.

Winners and losers of climate change for the genus Merodon (Diptera: Syrphidae) across the Balkan Peninsula

“…Therefore, considering the importance of geophytes for the existence of Merodon species at the larval stage as well as the richness and abundance of floral resources for the adults, the inclusion of land cover change could be more informative, resulting in a more integrated knowledge of hoverflies potential future distribution shifts. However, Martin et al (2013) found that the incorporation of land cover change scenarios did not contribute significantly to the assessment of species' future distribution ranges. Although they were not discarding their future use, they indicated the necessity of an improvement of the thematic resolution of land cover change scenarios.…”

Recent Progress on Spatial and Thematic Resolution in Landscape Ecology

“…Several studies have compared the effects of using explanatory variables with a range of thematic and spatial resolutions in species distribution modelling and showed that they have a large effect on predictive accuracy [75,76]. In particular Liang et al [77] modelled three thematic and six spatial resolutions and assessed individual effects and interactions.…”

Using mixed objects in the training of object-based image classifications

“…Information on the Earth's surface such as land cover and related environmental processes is of 29 great importance for a plethora of applications, for example for decision-making on issues related 30 to agriculture and food security (Fritz et al, 2013;Gardi et al, 2015), monitoring the distribution 31 of species (Martin et al, 2013;Tuanmu and Jetz, 2014), and modelling of the Earth's climate 32 (Luyssaert et al, 2014;Mahmood et al, 2014). For this reason, thematic mapping through a 33 classification analysis is a very common application of remote sensing.…”