• Energy Research

Reptile fauna should be considered a conservation objective, especially in respect of the impacts of climate change on their distribution and range’s dynamics. Investigating the environmental drivers of reptile species richness and identifying their suitable habitats is a fundamental prerequisite to setting efficient long-term conservation measures. This study focused on geographical patterns and estimations of species richness for herpetofauna widely spread Z. vivipara, N. natrix, V. berus, A. colchica, and protected in Latvia C. austriaca, E. orbicularis, L. agilis inhabiting northern (model territory Latvia) and southern (model territory Ukraine) part of their European range. The ultimate goal was to designate a conservation network that will meet long-term goals for survival of the target species in the context of climate change. We used stacked species distribution models for creating maps depicting the distribution of species richness under current and future (by 2050) climates for marginal reptilepopulations. Using cluster analysis, we showed that this herpeto-complex can be divided into “widespread species” and “forest species”. For all forest species we predicted a climate-driven reduction in their distribution range both North (Latvia) and South (Ukraine). The most vulnerable populations of “forest species” tend to be located in the South of their range, as a consequence of northward shifts by 2050. By 2050 the greatest reduction in range is predicted for currently widely spread Z. vivipara (by 1.4 times) and V. berus (by 2.2 times). In terms of designing an effective protected-area network, these results permit to identify priority conservation areas where the full ensemble of selected reptile species can be found, and confirms the relevance of abiotic multi-factor GIS-modelling for achieving this goal.

Since the 1980s there has been a long-term decline in numbers and contraction of range in Europe, including Ukraine. Our specific goals were to reconstruct the climatically suitable range of the species in Ukraine before the 1980s, gain better knowledge on its requirements, compare the past and current suitable areas, infer the regional and environmental variables that best explain its occurrence, and quantify the overall range change in the country. For these purposes we created a database consisting of 347 records of the roller made ever in Ukraine. We employed a species distribution modeling (SDM) approach to hindcast changes in the suitable range of the roller during historical times across Ukraine and to derive spatially explicit predictions of climatic suitability for the species under current climate. SDMs were created for three time intervals (before 1980, 1985-2009, 2010-2021) using corresponding climate data extracted from the TerraClim database. SDMs show a decline of suitable for rollers areas in the country from 85 to 46%. Several factors, including land cover and use, human population density and climate, that could have contributed to the decline of the species in Ukraine were considered. We suggest climate change and its speed (velocity) have been responsible for shaping the contemporary home range of the European roller.

The study of the distribution of protected animal species in Europe is especially relevant in a changing climate. Therefore, in this work, we tried to solve the problem of the possibility of habitation of tortoises Testudo graeca Linnaeus, 1758 and Testudo hermanni Gmelin, 1789 in Eastern Europe by using species distribution models (SDMs). We used bioclimatic variables from the CliMond dataset (18 uncorrelated variables of 35) and 19 Paleoclim variables of the “early-Holocene” and “mid-Holocene”. Packages Maxent and 'ntbox' were employed. In addition to our data, we used findings listed in the GBIF databases: 1,935 points for T. graeca and 991 points for T. hermanni. It has been shown that subspecies of tortoises differ in the characteristics of the ecological niche. In addition to direct anthropogenic influences, the limiting factor is the “Mean temperature of coldest quarter” (bio11) for both species. Moreover, T. graeca is less demanding and can tolerate both frost and higher temperatures during drier periods than T. hermanni. Modeling found that in the future it is possible for these species will expand in a north-eastern direction, where potentially suitable habitats will appear: by 2090 in the South of Ukraine (Odessa region, Crimea) and East Ukraine (floodplain of the Siversky Donets River of the Don basin).