Biodiv Sci ›› 2018, Vol. 26 ›› Issue (2): 171-176.  DOI: 10.17520/biods.2017080

Special Issue: 青藏高原生物多样性与生态安全

• Orginal Article • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Predicting the potential distribution of white-lipped deer using the MaxEnt model

Shaopeng Cui1,2,3#, Xiao Luo1,2#, Chunwang Li1,2, Huijian Hu4, Zhigang Jiang1,2,*()   

  1. 1 Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101
    2 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049
    3 College of Forestry, Shanxi Agricultural University, Taigu, Shanxi 030801
    4 Guangdong Institute of Applied Biological Resources, Guangzhou 510260
  • Received:2017-03-15 Accepted:2017-11-16 Online:2018-02-20 Published:2018-05-05
  • Contact: Jiang Zhigang
  • About author:# Co-first authors

Abstract:

Species distribution is critical for developing effective conservation measures. The potential geographic distribution of the white-lipped deer (Przewalskium albirostris), which is endemic to the Qinghai- Tibetan Plateau, was delineated using the Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) model with 97 occurrence records and 7 environmental variables. The species occurrences were collected from literature and field investigations. Our results showed that the potential range of the white-lipped deer included the eastern part of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau and the potential habitat spread from one core region to neighboring regions among Tibet, Qinghai, and Sichuan provinces. The Jackknife test indicated that the topographic variable, temperature seasonality, and annual precipitation were the most important predictive factors for the model, while the human activity variable made a relatively small contribution. The current distribution and status of the white-lipped deer on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau is unclear and we suggest further research is needed on the species.

http://jtp.cnki.net/bilingual/detail/html/SWDY201802007

Key words: MaxEnt, white-lipped deer, Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, potential distribution