Predicting the potential impacts of climate change on the endangered endemic annonaceae species in east africa

Abstract

Globally, endemic species and natural habitats have been significantly impacted by climate change, and further considerable impacts are predicted. Therefore, understanding how endemic species are impacted by climate change can aid in advancing the necessary conservation initiatives. The use of niche modeling is becoming a popular topic in biological conservation to forecast changes in species distributions under various climate change scenarios. This study used the Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator version 1 (ACCESS-CM2) general circulation model of coupled model intercomparison project phase 6 (CMIP6) to model the current distribution of suitable habitat for the four threatened Annonaceae species endemic to East Africa (EA), to determine the impact of climate change on their suitable habitat in the years 2050 (average for 2041-2060) and 2070 (average for 2061-2080). Two shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs) SSP370 and SSP585 were used to project the contraction and expansion of suitable habitats for Uvariodendron kirkii, Uvaria kirkii, Uvariodendron dzomboense and Asteranthe asterias endemic to Kenya and Tanzania in EA. The current distribution for all four species is highly influenced by precipitation, temperature, and environmental factors (population, potential evapotranspiration, and aridity index). Although the loss of the original suitable habitat is anticipated to be significant, appropriate habitat expansion and contraction are projections for all species. More than 70% and 40% of the original habitats of Uvariodendron dzombense and Uvariodendron kirkii are predicted to be destroyed by climate change, respectively. Based on our research, we suggest that areas that are expected to shrink owing to climate change be classified as important protection zones for the preservation of Annonaceae species.

Keywords: Climate change; Conservation management; Ecological niche modeling; Threatened species.

Fig. 1

Maps showing the distribution points for the four Annonaceae species; distributed in Kenya and Tanzania.

Fig. 2

Currently projected habitat suitability maps indicate the distribution of the species along Kenya and Tanzanian coastlines.

Fig. 3

The projected future suitable habitat distribution areas for the four Annonaceae species in East Africa (Kenya and Tanzania) projected using SSPs scenarios (SSP370 and SSP585) for the averaged years in 2050 (average for 2041–2060) and 2070 (average for 2061–2080). Suitable habitats for the species are shown; with green color, unsuitable habitats (contraction) with red color, and expansion is shown with yellow color. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)

Fig. 3

The projected future suitable habitat distribution areas for the four Annonaceae species in East Africa (Kenya and Tanzania) projected using SSPs scenarios (SSP370 and SSP585) for the averaged years in 2050 (average for 2041–2060) and 2070 (average for 2061–2080). Suitable habitats for the species are shown; with green color, unsuitable habitats (contraction) with red color, and expansion is shown with yellow color. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)

Fig. 4

The two-dimensional ecological niche visualization for Uvariodendron dzombense, Uvaria kirkii, Uvariodendron kirkii, and Uvaria kirkii, using the most contributing variables; Isothermality (bio6), evapotranspiration, mean Diurnal Range (bio4), temperature annual range (bio7), population, precipitation seasonality (bio15), aridity index (AI), and precipitation of the coldest quarter (bio19). The availability of combinations of environmental variable space (with a scale between 0 and 286) globally is indicated by the red outline, and the grey and blue color mixtures projected the suitable environmental space habitable by the species. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)