Data from: Future climatically suitable areas for bats in South Asia

Climate change majorly impacts biodiversity in diverse regions across the
world, including South Asia, a megadiverse area with heterogeneous
climatic and vegetation regions. However, climate impacts on bats in this
region are not well‐studied, and it is unclear whether climate effects
will follow patterns predicted in other regions. We address this by
assessing projected near‐future changes in climatically suitable areas for
110 bat species from South Asia. We used ensemble ecological niche
modelling with four algorithms (random forests, artificial neural
networks, multivariate adaptive regression splines and maximum entropy) to
define climatically suitable areas under current conditions (1970–2000).
We then extrapolated near future (2041–2060) suitable areas under four
projected scenarios (combining two global climate models and two shared
socioeconomic pathways, SSP2: middle‐of‐the‐road and SSP5: fossil‐fuelled
development). Projected future changes in suitable areas varied across
species, with most species predicted to retain most of the current area or
lose small amounts. When shifts occurred due to projected climate change,
new areas were generally northward of current suitable areas. Suitability
hotspots, defined as regions suitable for >30% of species, were
generally predicted to become smaller and more fragmented. Overall,
climate change in the near future may not lead to dramatic shifts in the
distribution of bat species in South Asia, but local hotspots of
biodiversity may be lost. Our results offer insight into climate change
effects in less studied areas and can inform conservation planning,
motivating reappraisals of conservation priorities and strategies for bats
in South Asia.