Estimating the impacts of climate change on the habitat suitability of common minke whales integrating local adaptation

• Published in: Frontiers in Marine Science
• Main Authors: Bin Sun, Linlin Zhao, Fei Shao, Zhichuang Lu, Jiashen Tian, Changdong Liu
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
• Subjects: balaenoptera acutorostrata; climate change; species distribution models; habitat suitability; local adaptation; Science; Q; General. Including nature conservation; geographical distribution; QH1-199.5; Pacific; Balaenoptera acutorostrata; minke whale; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.923205; https://doaj.org/article/e6106a52f5e54616b77c1d3bf978e2f9

Climate change is exerting unprecedented effects on the habitats of marine mammals. Common minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) have suffered immense harm from commercial whaling, and the recovery of this species is likely threatened by climate change. To better manage and conserve this species, it is important to predict its current habitat distribution and the potential change under future climate change scenarios. Such predictions are typically generated by species distribution models (SDMs), which construct a correlation between species occurrence data and its habitat environmental variables. SDMs are commonly constructed at the species level, assuming a homogenous response of the species to climatic variables across their entire geographic range. Spatially segregated populations from the same species inhabit distinct environments and gradually adapt to the local conditions, resulting in niche differentiation among populations. Species-level SDMs that ignore the effects of local adaptation mask differences in population responses to climate change and might present an unrealistic picture of potential species distributions. Based on morphological and genetic evidence, the common minke whale was divided into three populations: the North Atlantic population (NAP), Southern Hemisphere population (SHP) and North Pacific population (NPP); these populations inhabit isolated geographic areas with distinct environmental conditions. We quantified the realized niches of these populations and found evidence of significant ecological niche differentiation. We then constructed SDMs at the species and population levels and compared the predictions from these two types of models under different climate change scenarios. Both types of models projected similar change trends in species range, with a contraction of future suitable habitats for the NAP and SHP and an expansion for the NPP. However, the magnitudes of this change differed; the population-level model projected more optimistic results for the SHP and NAP, ...