Predicting range shifts of the giant pandas under future climate and land use scenarios

Aim: Understanding and predicting how species will respond to global environmental change (i.e., climate and land use change) is essential to efficiently inform conservation and management strategies for authorities and managers. Here, we assessed the combined effect of future climate and land use change on the potential range shifts of the giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). 
Location: Sichuan Province, China.
Methods: We used ensemble species distribution models (SDMs) to forecast range shifts of the giant pandas by the 2050s and 2070s under four combined climate and land use change scenarios. We also compared the differences in distributional changes of giant pandas among the five mountains in the study area. 
Results: Our ensemble SDMs exhibited good model performance in terms of both AUC (0.931) and TSS (0.747), and suggested that precipitation seasonality, annual mean temperature, the proportion of forest cover and total annual precipitation are the most important factors in sh...