Data from: Differential vulnerability of key threatened mammals to climate and land cover changes in the Central Himalayas

Anthropogenic climate change affects biological diversity by altering
their suitable habitat ranges. The Himalayan region is one of the
world's most sensitive biodiversity hotspots to global climate
change. The Chitwan–Annapurna Landscape (CHAL) in the Central Himalayas
serves as a vital north‒south linkage among the protected areas in central
Nepal, and provides suitable habitats for threatened mammals in different
ecological zones, such as snow leopards (in the alpine zone), Himalayan
red panda (in the temperate zone), and one-horned rhinoceros (in the
lowland tropical zone). The biodiversity of CHAL is threatened by climate
change and land use alterations. This study assessed the potential impacts
of climate and land cover changes on the above three key threatened
mammals in CHAL by employing maximum entropy (MaxEnt) modeling to predict
the current potential habitat and project it for future climate change
scenarios under different greenhouse gas concentrations. Further, we used
the cellular automata and Markov-Chain models to simulate and predict the
temporal and spatial changes in land cover of CHAL. Our results indicate
that the snow leopard and Himalayan red panda will experience significant
vulnerability than the one-horned rhinoceros in all future climate
scenarios. Approximately 36.3% and 41.8% of the suitable habitat of the
snow leopard and 32.5% and 56% of the Himalayan red panda in CHAL are
projected to be lost in 2050 and 2070, respectively, under RCP6.0. Climate
refugia, representing areas of suitable habitat for 2070 (under the
RCP6.0) in CHAL, are projected to cover 958 km2 (80.37% of the current
range), 1,052 km2 (43.73% of the current range), and 2,375 km2 (58.21% of
the current range) for one-horned rhinoceros, Himalayan red panda and snow
leopard, respectively. Among the land cover attributes in CHAL, snow cover
is predicted to decrease by 24% in 2070. Our findings indicate that
species inhabiting alpine and temperate environments are more susceptible
to human-induced climate change than those inhabiting lowland tropical
areas. These findings will help to implement the adaptation actions that
are crucial to address future conservation challenges arising from climate
and land cover change.