Bartlow Andrew W, Giermakowski J Tomasz, Painter Charles W, Neville Paul, Schultz-Fellenz Emily S, Crawford Brandon M, Lavadie-Bulnes Anita F, Thompson Brent E, Hathcock Charles D
Biosecurity & Public Health Group Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos New Mexico USA.
Museum of Southwestern Biology 1 University of New Mexico Albuquerque New Mexico USA.
Ecol Evol. 2022 Aug 23;12(8):e9161. doi: 10.1002/ece3.9161. eCollection 2022 Aug.
The Jemez Mountains salamander (; hereafter JMS) is an endangered salamander restricted to the Jemez Mountains in north-central New Mexico, United States. This strictly terrestrial and lungless species requires moist surface conditions for activities such as mating and foraging. Threats to its current habitat include fire suppression and ensuing severe fires, changes in forest composition, habitat fragmentation, and climate change. Forest composition changes resulting from reduced fire frequency and increased tree density suggest that its current aboveground habitat does not mirror its historically successful habitat regime. However, because of its limited habitat area and underground behavior, we hypothesized that geology and topography might play a significant role in the current distribution of the salamander. We modeled the distribution of the JMS using a machine learning algorithm to assess how geology, topography, and climate variables influence its distribution. The best habitat suitability model indicates that geology type and maximum winter temperature (November to March) were most important in predicting the distribution of the salamander (23.5% and 50.3% permutation importance, respectively). Minimum winter temperature was also an important variable (21.4%), suggesting this also plays a role in salamander habitat. Our habitat suitability map reveals low uncertainty in model predictions, and we found slight discrepancies between the designated critical habitat and the most suitable areas for the JMS. Because geological features are important to its distribution, we recommend that geological and topographical data are considered, both during survey design and in the description of localities of JMS records once detected.
杰梅兹山蝾螈（以下简称JMS）是一种濒危蝾螈，仅分布于美国新墨西哥州中北部的杰梅兹山脉。这种完全陆生且无肺的物种在进行交配和觅食等活动时需要潮湿的地表条件。其当前栖息地面临的威胁包括灭火措施及随之而来的严重火灾、森林组成变化、栖息地破碎化和气候变化。火灾频率降低和树木密度增加导致的森林组成变化表明，其当前的地上栖息地与历史上适宜的栖息地状况不符。然而，由于其栖息地面积有限且具有地下活动习性，我们推测地质和地形可能在该蝾螈当前的分布中起着重要作用。我们使用机器学习算法对JMS的分布进行建模，以评估地质、地形和气候变量如何影响其分布。最佳栖息地适宜性模型表明，地质类型和冬季最高温度（11月至3月）在预测蝾螈分布方面最为重要（排列重要性分别为23.5%和50.3%）。冬季最低温度也是一个重要变量（21.4%），这表明它在蝾螈栖息地中也发挥着作用。我们的栖息地适宜性地图显示模型预测的不确定性较低，并且我们发现指定的关键栖息地与JMS最适宜的区域之间存在细微差异。由于地质特征对其分布很重要，我们建议在调查设计期间以及一旦发现JMS记录后在描述其地点时都要考虑地质和地形数据。
