Ecological niche modelling predicts significant impacts of future climate change on two endemic rodents in eastern Africa

Main Article Content

Aditya Srinivasulu
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0608-970X
Alembrhan Assefa
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3516-7500
Chelmala Srinivasulu
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4331-8580

Abstract

The impact of climate change on rodents is well studied, however, many of these studies are restricted to the Americas.  Small- to medium-sized rodents, especially murids, are restricted in their home range and microclimatic niche breadth, and are known to be more sensitive to changes in bioclimatic conditions over time.  We analyzed the effect of future climatic scenarios in the near and distant future, using two global climate models (CanESM5 and MIROC-ES2L) for two shared socio-economic pathways (SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5), on two eastern Africa endemic small-bodied mice: Stenocephalemys albipes and Mastomys awashensis. Our results indicate that while S. albipes showed increases in area of climatic suitability in the future, M. awashensis is predicted to suffer severe decline in the area of its fundamental niche.    

Article Details

Section
Communications
Author Biographies

Aditya Srinivasulu, Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Studies, #F6 CFRD Building, Osmania University, Hyderabad, Telangana 500007, India.

Research Fellow

Alembrhan Assefa, Department of Biology, College of Natural and Computational Science, Adigrat University, P.O. Box: 50, Adigrat, Ethiopia.

Assistant Professor

Chelmala Srinivasulu, Natural History Museum & Wildlife Biology and Taxonomy Lab, Department of Zoology, University College of Science, Osmania University, Hyderabad, Telangana 500007, India.

Senior Assistant Professor

Department of Zoology

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