Predicting climate change impact on the habitat of Ethiopia’s spot-breasted lapwing using ensemble model

Endemic species are usually confined in a restricted geographical range with specialized ecological requirements. Majority of these species, therefore, are under the risk of extinction due to climate change coupled with other anthropogenic pressures. The impact is increasingly recognized as severe in tropical highland endemic bird species by either shifting or contracting their geographical range. In this study, we tried to show the impact of climate change on one of Ethiopian highland endemic bird species, the spot-breasted lapwing (Vanellus melanocephalus). Although this species is considered Least Concern, it is restricted in the fragmented Afro-alpine open grassland a long streams or seasonal pond ecosystem of Ethiopia. We predicted the current suitable habitat of this species and projected its future suitable habitat range under two shared socio-economic pathways (SSP4.5 and SSP8.5) of the year 2050 and 2070. We used 117 georeferenced occurrence points and 11 ecologically important variables to develop an ensemble suitable habitat modeling by averaging nine-species distribution algorithms with threshold of TSS > 0.7. The result indicated 104,117.62 km² area as a predicted suitable habitat range in various northwestern and southeastern Ethiopian highlands. The largest range of this suitable habitat (78.02 %) is outside the protected areas of the country. Mean temperature of the driest quarter was the leading bioclimatic variable for the prediction of suitable habitat of this species followed by iso-thermality and vegetation. Habitat suitability declined as mean temperature of the driest quarter is beyond 15ºC. Under future climatic scenarios, substantial suitable habitat loss will occur with more than 50 % of net range size change. This loss of suitable habitat will be 86.60 % under SSP8.5 by the year 2070. Such range contractions suggest the potential risk of extinction of this species in the future unless conservation action is taken. The presence of a large range of current suitable habitat outside of protected areas reveal the need for species-specific conservation plan in both protected and unprotected areas. Moreover, adequate ecological, genetic and geographical studies are also mandatory to have full understanding regarding the impact of climate change and anthropogenic pressure on this endemic bird species in the future.