Habitat suitability maps for Australian flora and fauna under CMIP6 climate scenarios

This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. The published version of this Preprint is available: https://doi.org/10.32942/X2NP59. This is version 2 of this Preprint.

Add a Comment

You must log in to post a comment.


Comments

There are no comments or no comments have been made public for this article.

Downloads

Download Preprint

Supplementary Files
Authors

Carla Leigh Archibald , David M Summers, Erin M Graham, Brett A. Bryan

Abstract

Background: Spatial information about the location and suitability of areas for native plant and animal species under different climate futures is an important input to land use and conservation planning and management. Australia, renowned for its abundant species diversity and endemism, often relies on modelled data to assess species distributions due to the country's vast size and the challenges associated with conducting on-ground surveys on such a large scale. The objective of this paper is to develop habitat suitability maps for Australian flora and fauna under different climate futures. Results: Using MaxEnt, we produced Australia-wide habitat suitability maps under RCP2.6-SSP1, RCP4.5-SSP2, RCP7.0-SSP3 and RCP8.5-SSP5 climate futures for 1,382 terrestrial vertebrates and 9,251 vascular plants vascular plants at 5km2 for open access. This represents 60% of all Australian mammal species, 77% of amphibian species, 50% of reptile species, 71% of bird species and 44% of vascular plant species. We also include tabular data which includes summaries of total quality-weighted habitat area of species under different climate scenarios and time periods. Conclusions: The spatial data supplied can help identify important and sensitive locations for species under various climate futures. Additionally, the supplied tabular data can provide insights into the impacts of climate change on biodiversity in Australia. These habitat suitability maps can be used as input data for landscape and conservation planning or species management, particularly under different climate change scenarios in Australia.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.32942/X2NP59

Subjects

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Keywords

biodiverstiy, bioclimatic variables, species distribution, species range, amphibian, reptile, bird, mammal, vascular plant, natural capital accounting, CliMAS, biodiverstiy data, climate suitability, suitability mapping, MaxEnt, spatial conservation planning, climate change, WorldClim, habitat suitability, niche, natural capital accounting, CliMAS, bioclimatic variables, species distribution, species range, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, vascular plants, Atlas of Living Australia, biodiversity data, climate suitability, suitability mapping, Maxent, spatial conservation planning, climate change, WorldClim, habitat suitability, niche

Dates

Published: 2023-07-05 03:04

Last Updated: 2023-11-30 14:07

Older Versions
License

CC BY Attribution 4.0 International

Additional Metadata

Language:
English

Conflict of interest statement:
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Data and Code Availability Statement:
All spatial and tabular data will be freely accessible in the companion GigaDB repository.