Biogeographic consequences of shifting climate for the western massasauga (Sistrurus tergeminus)

The western massasauga (Sistrurus tergeminus) is a small pit viper with an extensive geographic range, yet observations of this species are relatively rare. They persist in patchy and isolated populations, threatened by habitat destruction and fragmentation, mortality from vehicle collisions, and deliberate extermination. Changing climates may pose an additional stressor on the survival of isolated populations. Here, we evaluate historic, modern, and future geographic projections of suitable climate for S. tergeminus to outline shifts in their potential geographic distribution and inform current and future management. We used maximum entropy modeling to build multiple models of the potential geographic distribution of S. tergeminus. We evaluated the influence of five key decisions made during the modeling process on the resulting geographic projections of the potential distribution, allowing us to identify areas of model robustness and uncertainty. We evaluated models with the area unde...西部猪鼻响尾蛇（Sistrurus tergeminus）是一种体型小巧的颊窝蝰蛇（pit viper），尽管其地理分布范围广泛，但该物种的野外观测记录相对稀少。它们以斑块状、孤立的种群形式存续，面临栖息地破坏与碎片化、车辆撞击致死以及人为刻意灭杀的多重威胁。气候变化或会为孤立种群的生存带来额外的生存压力。本研究针对西部猪鼻响尾蛇的适宜气候栖息地，评估其历史、当前及未来的地理分布预测结果，以阐明该物种潜在分布范围的变化趋势，并为当前及未来的物种管理工作提供参考依据。本研究采用最大熵模型（maximum entropy modeling）构建了多组关于西部猪鼻响尾蛇潜在地理分布的预测模型。我们评估了建模流程中五项关键决策对最终潜在分布地理预测结果的影响，借此明确模型具备稳健性与存在不确定性的区域。我们以（原文此处内容未完成，仅显示“area unde...”）