Impact of climate change on the temporal and spatial distribution of the Indian Peafowl (Pavo cristatus) in Kerala

Abstract

It has been of great importance for the researchers in finding the factors which influenced the species distributions. They are keen to know the current and future distribution patterns of endangered species for implementing the conservation strategies. Some invasive species are expanding their territory into new areas and it have to identify accurately. Avian species are regarded as a good bio-indicator of these devastating changes in the environment. This study was done based on the spatial and temporal distribution of the Indian Peafowl in Kerala, which would be supportive to establish the changes happening in the environment at various places. During the recent decades, rapid expansion in the distribution of the Indian Peafowl was occurred. The hypothesis of this study was that, this expansion is due to the climatic changes. To delineate species distributions and habitat associations, MaxEnt program was used. Using the current presence data acquired from e-Bird data source and 19 bioclimatic variables from WorldClim v1.4 the distribution of the Indian Peafowl had been modelled. Using the current distribution analysis, it would project the distribution of Indian Peafowl into the future by converging it to the maximum entropy probability distribution. Only the uncorrelated variables were used for the study, selected by checking for its percent contribution, permutation importance and R2 value. The study revealed the current (1950-2015) and projected distribution pattern of the Indian Peafowl for the years 2050 and 2070 under different RCP projections. The projected models tells about the increasing spatial distribution of the Indian Peafowl throughout Kerala except in Alappuzha and western slopes of Wayanad. The central part of Kerala is the hotspot of the Indian Peafowl currently and it will be the same in the future. The combined effects of precipitation and temperature variation have an indispensable role in this projected distribution of the Indian Peafowl.