Lowland forest loss and climate-only species distribution models exaggerate a forest-dependent species' vulnerability to climate change

Climate-only species distribution models are commonly used to evaluate a species' vulnerability to future climate change. However, these models may overestimate a species' vulnerability when occurrence data comes from only a subset of the species' historical range due to anthropogenic range contractions. This study investigated the impacts of using climate-only species distribution models with anthropogenically truncated occurrence data on future predictions, using the little-studied leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) of mainland Tropical Asia as a case study. Like most other species in mainland Tropical Asia, the leopard cat's current distribution represents a non-random subset of its historical range due to the disproportionate loss of lowland forests in the region. We found that climate-only species distribution models trained on current occurrence data significantly overestimated the leopard cat's vulnerability to future climate change, predicting considerable range contractions by 2081-2100 due to rising summer temperatures. A similar range contraction was observed using a virtual species whose occurrence was solely predicated on extant forest cover and not climate. This suggested the leopard cat's apparent vulnerability to future climate change was driven by a spurious relationship with summer temperatures, as modern occurrence data primarily came from refugial forest cover in the region's cooler uplands rather than the warmer, human-dominated lowlands. This bias was not apparent, however, from our current predictions, which had high predictive accuracy and were spatially consistent with current knowledge of the species' distribution; an observation highlighting the inadequacy of predictive accuracy alone as a metric for selecting models in studies where transferability to novel environments is critical. We next considered two potential strategies for detecting and mitigating the effects of anthropogenically truncated occurrence data: 1) the use of hybrid models that incorporate both climatic and non-climatic variables, and 2) the use of climate-only models with historical datasets. Despite using different data, both proposed strategies produced spatially similar predictions of present and future leopard cat occurrence with little-to-no range contractions predicted. We thus recommend all species distribution modeling studies interested in assessing a species' vulnerability to climate change compare future predictions derived from climate-only and hybrid models as well as compare predictions from current and historical datasets, as differences in predictions can highlight the presence of potential biases and other limitations. Finally, we discuss our findings as they apply to both our focal species and to the overall field of species distribution modeling.

Automated summary

Climate-only species distribution models may overestimate species' vulnerability to future climate change when occurrence data comes from a subset of the species' historical range. This study focused on the leopard cat and found that current occurrence data led to an overestimation of the species' vulnerability to future climate change. Hybrid models and historical datasets provided more accurate predictions.