Mapping Suitable Habitat and Anthropocene Refugia for Ethiopian Guerezas: Insights for Their Conservation
28 Pages Posted: 5 Aug 2024
Abstract
Ethiopia is home to two subspecies of Colobus guereza, C. g. guereza and C. g. gallarum. Whereas C. g. guereza is listed as Least Concern by IUCN, the conservation status of C. g. gallarum is unclear, but according to a recent assessment, it must most likely be listed as Vulnerable, because of habitat loss due to agricultural expansion. Since particularly the pressure on C. g. gallarum is high, we used climate data to model the habitat suitability of both taxa in a comparative study to identify suitable habitats within and outside of protected areas that may serve as Anthropocene refugia. Our ensemble models estimated 168,731 km2 as suitable habitat for C. g. guereza as and as 69,542 km2 for C. g. gallarum with an overlap between the two taxa of 17.2 %. Areas that qualified as refugia were 47,101 km2 and 8,430 km2 for C. g. guereza and C. g. gallarum, respectively. Of these, 39.8%, and 53.7% are within Ethiopia’s protected area network for C. g. guereza and C. g. gallarum, respectively. Given that potential Anthropocene refugia are found only partly within protected areas, conservation management should include this information when developing conservation strategies for both taxa.
Keywords: anthropogenic pressure, climate data, Colobus guereza, ensemble modelling, habitat suitability, primates
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