Impacts of climate change on the distributions and diversity of the giant panda with its sympatric mammalian species

Abstract

It is widely accepted that anthropogenic climate change is driving species redistribution globally, which would potentially lead to a reshuffling of ecological communities worldwide. Here, we used tuned MaxEnt models to forecast range shifts, changes in species richness and species turnover of the giant panda with its 22 sympatric mammalian species under different future climate change scenarios. We found that more than 78% of these mammalian species will experience range contraction under all future scenarios, and importantly, at least three species were predicted to lose more suitable habitat than the giant pandas. We also predicted net losses of mammalian species under future climate change. In particular, the greatest species richness declines mainly occur in Daxiangling and Liangshan mountains, with high species losses and low species gains. Similarly, we found that the strongest species turnovers mainly occur in Qionglai and Liangshan mountains. Our findings highlight that future climate change will pose a major threat to the distribution and diversity of the giant panda with its sympatric mammalian species, challenging the effectiveness of using umbrella species to guide ecosystem conservation and management under climate change. Therefore, a more holistic ecosystem protection strategy, rather than the single-species rescue approach, should be implemented to protect mammal communities in a changing world.

Keywords

• Giant pandas
• Climate change
• Sympatric mammals
• Range shifts
• Species richness
• Species turnover