College of Life Sciences, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an 710119, China; Research Center for UAV Remote Sensing, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an 710119, China.
College of Life Sciences, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an 710119, China; Research Center for UAV Remote Sensing, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an 710119, China.
Sci Total Environ. 2018 Jan 15;612:775-787. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.08.191. Epub 2017 Sep 1.
Dryland biodiversity plays important roles in the fight against desertification and poverty, but is highly vulnerable to the impacts of environmental change. However, little research has been conducted on dual pressure from climate and land cover changes on biodiversity in arid and semi-arid environments. Concequntly, it is crutial to understand the potential impacts of future climate and land cover changes on dryland biodiversity. Here, using the Chinese Altai Mountains as a case study area, we predicted the future spatial distributions and local assemblages of nine threatened mammal species under projected climate and land cover change scenarios for the period 2010-2050. The results show that remarkable declines in mammal species richness as well as high rates of species turnover are seen to occur across large areas in the Chinese Altai Mountains, highlighting an urgent need for developing protection strategies for areas outside of current nature reserve network. The selected mammals are predicted to lose more than 50% of their current ranges on average, which is much higher than species' range gains (around 15%) under future climate and land cover changes. Most of the species are predicted to contract their ranges while moving eastwards and to higher altitudes, raising the need for establishing cross-border migration pathways for species. Furthermore, the inclusion of land cover changes had notable effects on projected range shifts of individual species under climate changes, demonstrating that land cover changes should be incorporated into the assessment of future climate impacts to facilitate biodiversity conservation in arid and semi-arid environments.
旱地生物多样性在防治荒漠化和贫困方面发挥着重要作用，但极易受到环境变化的影响。然而，对于干旱和半干旱地区气候和土地覆盖变化对生物多样性的双重压力的研究甚少。因此，了解未来气候和土地覆盖变化对旱地生物多样性的潜在影响至关重要。在这里，我们以中国阿尔泰山脉为研究区，预测了在未来气候和土地覆盖变化情景下，2010-2050 年期间 9 种濒危哺乳动物物种的未来空间分布和局部组合。结果表明，阿尔泰山脉大面积地区的哺乳动物物种丰富度显著下降，物种更替率也很高，这突出表明需要制定保护区外的保护策略。选定的哺乳动物预计将平均失去超过 50%的现有分布范围，这比未来气候和土地覆盖变化下物种的分布范围增加（约 15%）要高得多。大多数物种预计将收缩其范围，同时向东和向更高的海拔移动，这就需要为物种建立跨境迁徙通道。此外，土地覆盖变化对气候变化下个别物种的预测范围变化有显著影响，这表明应该将土地覆盖变化纳入未来气候影响评估，以促进干旱和半干旱地区的生物多样性保护。
