The potential effects of climate change on amphibian distribution, range fragmentation and turnover in China

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1 Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Biodiversity and Biotechnology, College of Life Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, Jiangsu, China
2 College of Life Sciences, Anqing Normal University, Anqing 246011, Anhui, China
3 Departamento de Ciencias de la Vida, Edificio de Ciencias, Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, 28805 Alcalá de Henares, Spain
4 Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, Invalidenstraße 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.1681v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Biodiversity, Conservation Biology, Ecology, Evolutionary Studies, Zoology
Keywords
Climate impacts, MaxEnt, Distribution, Fragmentation, Amphibians, Dispersal, Turnover, Range shifts
Copyright
© 2016 Duan et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Duan R, Kong X, Huang M, Varela S, Ji X. 2016. The potential effects of climate change on amphibian distribution, range fragmentation and turnover in China. PeerJ PrePrints 4:e1681v1

Abstract

Many studies predict that climate change will cause species movement and turnover, but few studies have considered the effect of climate change on range fragmentation for current species and/or populations. We used MaxEnt to predict suitable habitat, fragmentation and turnover for 134 amphibian species in China under 40 future climate change scenarios spanning four pathways (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6 and RCP8.5) and two time periods (the 2050s and 2070s). Our results show that climate change will cause a major shift in the spatial patterns of amphibian diversity. Suitable habitats for over 90% of species will be located in the north of the current range, for over 95% of species in higher altitudes, and for over 75% of species in the west of the current range. The distributions of species predicted to move westwards, southwards and to higher altitudes will contract, while the ranges of the species not showing these trends will expand. Amphibians will lose 20% of their original ranges on average; the distribution outside current ranges will increase by 15%. Climate change will likely modify the spatial configuration of climatically suitable areas. Changes in area and fragmentation of climatically suitable patches are related, which means that species may be simultaneously affected by different stressors as a consequence of climate change.

Author Comment

This is a submission to PeerJ for review.

Supplemental Information

TableS1

Scientific classification and IUCN category of the 134 amphibian species analyzed . CR: critically endangered; DD: data deficient; EN: endangered; LC: least concern; NE: not evaluated; NT: near threatened; VU: vulnerable.

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.1681v1/supp-1