Potential impact of climate change on the distribution of Capricornis
milneedwardsii, a vulnerable mammal in China
Abstract
Climate change significantly impacted on the survival, development,
distribution, and abundance of living organisms. The Chinese serow
Capricornis milneedwardsii, known as the ‘four unlike’, is a Class II
nationally protected species in China. In this study, we predicted the
geographical suitability of C. milneedwardsii under current and future
climatic conditions using MaxEnt. The model simulations resulted in area
under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) values above 0.9
for both current and future climate scenarios, indicating the excellent
performance, high accuracy, and credibility of the MaxEnt model. The
results also showed that annual precipitation (Bio12), slope, elevation,
and mean temperature of wettest quarter (Bio8) were the key
environmental variables affecting the distribution of C. milneedwardsii,
with contributions of 31.2%, 26.4%, 11%, and 10.3%, respectively.
The moderately and highly suitable habitats were mainly located in the
moist area of China, with a total area of 34.56×104 and 16.61×104 km2,
respectively. Under future climate change scenarios, the areas of
suitability of C. milneedwardsii showed an increasing trend. The
geometric center of the total suitable habitats of C. milneedwardsii
would show the trend of northwest expansion and southeast contraction.
These findings could provide a theoretical reference for the protection
of C. milneedwardsii in the future.