Ohashi Haruka, Kominami Yuji, Higa Motoki, Koide Dai, Nakao Katsuhiro, Tsuyama Ikutaro, Matsui Tetsuya, Tanaka Nobuyuki
Department of Plant Ecology Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute 1 Matsunosato Tsukuba Ibaraki 305-8687 Japan.
Center for International Partnerships and Research on Climate Change Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute 1 Matsunosato Tsukuba Ibaraki 305-8687 Japan.
Ecol Evol. 2016 Oct 5;6(21):7763-7775. doi: 10.1002/ece3.2514. eCollection 2016 Nov.
Ongoing climate change and land-use change have the potential to substantially alter the distribution of large herbivores. This may result in drastic changes in ecosystems by changing plant-herbivore interactions. Here, we developed a model explaining sika deer persistence and colonization between 25 years in terms of neighborhood occupancy and habitat suitability. We used climatic, land-use, and topographic variables to calculate the habitat suitability and evaluated the contributions of the variables to past range changes of sika deer. We used this model to predict the changes in the range of sika deer over the next 100 years under four scenario groups with the combination of land-use change and climate change. Our results showed that both climate change and land-use change had affected the range of sika deer in the past 25 years. Habitat suitability increased in northern or mountainous regions, which account for 71.6% of Japan, in line with a decrease in the snow cover period. Habitat suitability decreased in suburban areas, which account for 28.4% of Japan, corresponding to land-use changes related to urbanization. In the next 100 years, the decrease in snow cover period and the increase in land abandonment were predicted to accelerate the range expansion of sika deer. Comparison of these two driving factors revealed that climate change will contribute more to range expansion, particularly from the 2070s onward. In scenarios that assumed the influence of both climate change and land-use change, the total sika deer range increased by between +4.6% and +11.9% from the baseline scenario. Climate change and land-use change will require additional efforts for future management of sika deer, particularly in the long term.
持续的气候变化和土地利用变化有可能极大地改变大型食草动物的分布。这可能会通过改变植物与食草动物之间的相互作用而导致生态系统发生剧烈变化。在此，我们开发了一个模型，根据邻域占有率和栖息地适宜性来解释梅花鹿在25年期间的持续存在和定殖情况。我们使用气候、土地利用和地形变量来计算栖息地适宜性，并评估这些变量对梅花鹿过去分布范围变化的贡献。我们利用这个模型来预测在土地利用变化和气候变化相结合的四个情景组下，未来100年梅花鹿分布范围的变化。我们的结果表明，在过去25年里，气候变化和土地利用变化都对梅花鹿的分布范围产生了影响。在占日本面积71.6%的北部或山区，栖息地适宜性增加，这与积雪期的缩短相一致。在占日本面积28.4%的郊区，栖息地适宜性下降，这与城市化相关的土地利用变化相对应。在未来100年里，预计积雪期的缩短和土地撂荒的增加将加速梅花鹿分布范围的扩大。对这两个驱动因素的比较表明，气候变化对分布范围扩大的贡献将更大，特别是从20世纪70年代起。在假设气候变化和土地利用变化都有影响的情景中，梅花鹿的总分布范围相对于基准情景增加了4.6%至11.9%。气候变化和土地利用变化将需要在未来对梅花鹿的管理方面做出额外努力，特别是从长期来看。
