engleski

Impact of climate change on suitable habitats for ground beetles in beech forests on karst

Distribution of ground beetles is still insufficiently surveyed in Croatia. Beech forests cover almost 17% of the land, and are among better surveyed areas with respect to available data on ground beetles. Here, we have used data from 44 localities from beech forests. We have selected 39 species with at least 5 records. To estimate possible climate change impact on distribution of carabids in beech forests, we have developed habitat suitability models using Maxent software, and season data on mean temperature and precipitation as environmental variables. For future climate data (2041 – 2070) we have used predictions that anticipate temperature increase from 1.5°C to 2.25°C among seasons, and precipitation decrease of 45 mm per season, except winter with small increase. Most important variables for Dinaric species were autumn precipitation and spring mean temperature, where former contributed to models above 71%. For Pannonian and widespread species there were more variables included in the models with more than 10% of importance, with spring temperature being among most frequent ones for widespread species. For Pannonian species spring and autumn precipitation were most frequent. Decrease in area of suitable habitats ranged from 30 to 100%. Latter meaning that for five species there are not going to be suitable habitats in beech forests in 50 years from now. Number of carabids per spatial unit can decrease from maximum of 29 at present climate to 21 species in the future. Obtained results urge for future research on habitat requirement of carabids and their present spatial distribution.

GIS; Maxent; spatial analyses; predictive models

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