Ecological impact assessment of climate change and habitat loss on wetland vertebrate assemblages of the Great Barrier Reef catchment and the influence of survey bias

Adam D. Canning; Nathan J. Waltham

doi:10.1002/ece3.7412

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Ecological impact assessment of climate change and habitat loss on wetland vertebrate assemblages of the Great Barrier Reef catchment and the influence of survey bias

Journal article

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Peer reviewed

Ecological impact assessment of climate change and habitat loss on wetland vertebrate assemblages of the Great Barrier Reef catchment and the influence of survey bias

Adam D. Canning and Nathan J. Waltham

Ecology and evolution, Vol.11(10), pp.5244-5254

05/2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7412

PMID: 34026003

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Abstract

Ecology

Environmental Sciences & Ecology

Evolutionary Biology

Life Sciences & Biomedicine

Science & Technology

Climate change

Great Barrier Reef

Species distribution modeling

Survey bias

Wetland loss

Wetlands are among the most vulnerable ecosystems, stressed by habitat loss and degradation from expanding and intensifying agricultural and urban areas. Climate change will exacerbate the impacts of habitat loss by altering temperature and rainfall patterns. Wetlands within Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR) catchment are not different, stressed by extensive cropping, urban expansion, and alteration for grazing. Understanding how stressors affect wildlife is essential for the effective management of biodiversity values and minimizing unintended consequences when trading off the multiple values wetlands support. Impact assessment is difficult, often relying on an aggregation of ad hoc observations that are spatially biased toward easily accessible areas, rather than systematic and randomized surveys. Using a large aggregate database of ad hoc observations, this study aimed to examine the influence of urban proximity on machine-learning models predicting taxonomic richness and assemblage turnover, relative to other habitat, landscape, and climate variables, for vertebrates dwelling in the wetlands of the GBR catchment. The distance from the nearest city was, by substantial margins, the most influential factor in predicting the richness and assemblage turnover of all vertebrate groups, except fish. Richness and assemblage turnover was predicted to be greatest nearest the main urban centers. The extent of various wetland habitats was highly influential in predicting the richness of all groups, while climate (predominately the rainfall in the wettest quarter) was highly influential in predicting assemblage turnover for all groups. Bias of survey records toward urban centers strongly influenced our ability to model wetland-affiliated vertebrates and may obscure our understanding of how vertebrates respond to habitat loss and climate change. This reinforces the need for randomized and systematic surveys to supplement existing ad hoc surveys. We urge modelers in other jurisdictions to better portray the potential influence of survey biases when modeling species distributions.

Details

Title: Ecological impact assessment of climate change and habitat loss on wetland vertebrate assemblages of the Great Barrier Reef catchment and the influence of survey bias
Creators: Adam D. Canning - James Cook University
Nathan J. Waltham - James Cook University
Publication Details: Ecology and evolution, Vol.11(10), pp.5244-5254
Publisher: Wiley
Number of pages: 11
Grant note: Australian Government; Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Queensland Government National Environment Science Program Tropical Water Quality Hub
Identifiers: 991013092673702368
Copyright: © 2021 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Academic Unit: Faculty of Science and Engineering
Language: English
Resource Type: Journal article

Ecological impact assessment of climate change and habitat loss on wetland vertebrate assemblages of the Great Barrier Reef catchment and the influence of survey bias

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