Species distribution models for predicting the habitat suitability of Chinese fire-bellied newt under climate change.

Climate change influences species geographical distribution and diversity pattern. The Chinese fire-bellied newt () is an endemic species distributed in East-central China, which has been classified as near-threatened species recently due to habitat destruction and degradation and illegal trade in the domestic and international pet markets. So far, little is known about the spatial distribution of the species. Based on bioclimatic data of the current and future climate projections, we modeled the change in suitable habitat for by ten algorithms, evaluated the importance of environmental factors in shaping their distribution, and identified distribution shifts under climate change scenarios. In this study, 46 records of from East China and 8 bioclimatic variables were used. Among the ten modeling algorithms, four (GAM, GBM, Maxent, and RF) were selected according to their predictive abilities. The current habitat suitability showed that had a relatively wide but fragmented distribution, and it encompassed 41,862 km. The models suggested that precipitation of warmest quarter (bio18) and mean temperature of wettest quarter (bio6) had the highest contribution to the model. This study revealed that is sensitive to climate change, which will lead to a large range shift. The projected spatial and temporal pattern of range shifts for should provide a useful reference for implementing long-term conservation and management strategies for amphibians in East China.