Considering plant-ungulate interaction contribute to maximizing conservation efficiency under climate change

Abstract

Climate change poses a major threat to biodiversity, thus understanding how these impacts manifest, and how they might be mitigated is a major priority for conservation biologists. Yet understanding the impacts is complex, due to the nuanced impacts on species directly, as well as resources they depend on. In this study, we examined how biotic interactions, specifically plant availability, effects the distribution patterns of an ungulate, i.e., Marco Polo sheep (Ovis ammon polii). Our findings suggest that plant availability is a major predictor of the sheep's range. The species distribution models (SDMs) incorporating biotic interactions, i.e., plant availability, increases accuracy in predicting the underlying implications of climate change on ungulates compared to models that exclude these interactions. Our results reveal discrepancies in ungulate spatial distribution patterns, with future suitable habitat contraction being less pronounced when incorporating biotic variables than without biotic variables (27 % vs. 33 %). Therefore, ignoring biotic interaction may overestimate the impacts of climate change, resulting in the inefficient allocation of scarce conservation resources. Additionally, our results indicate the importance of protected areas (PAs) as important climatic refugia, though less than half of the range is currently within PAs. This study emphasizes the non-negligible role of biotic interactions in forecasting the geographical distribution of ungulates, which has critical implications for the future wildlife conservation.