Geospatial analysis to assess distribution patterns and predictive models for endangered plant species to support manage
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Geospatial analysis to assess distribution patterns and predictive models for endangered plant species to support management decisions: a case study in the Balearic Islands Joana Cursach1
•
Antoni Josep Far1 • Maurici Ruiz2
Received: 18 December 2019 / Revised: 25 July 2020 / Accepted: 30 July 2020 Ó Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Species distribution modelling (SDM) has been used to support biodiversity management in recent years. However, the use of SDM at small scales with geolocation systems to obtain high-accuracy location data remains unexplored. In this study, we focused on Euphorbia fontqueriana, an endangered species to Mallorca (western Mediterranean basin), and we aimed to assess the spatial distribution patterns, and to generate a distribution map of the habitat suitability in a wider area. A differential GPS was used to geolocate all the ramets. We used the global Moran’s I index and local Getis Ord-Gi* method to assess the spatial patterns. We pre-selected derived topographic variables that were generated from LiDAR data (elevation, slope, northness and eastness), the connectivity index, normalised difference vegetation index, and soil type, as the environmental (predictor) variables. In addition, we ran the Maxent model using 1603 occurrence locations and seven environmental variables at a resolution of 2 9 2 m in grid size. The population consisted of 1625 ramets that were clustered (global Moran’s I index = 0.161, z score = 16.599, p value \ 0.001) in several hotspots (i.e. areas with high plant density that were surrounded by areas with high plant densities). The Maxent model, which showed a good performance (AUC training score = 0.977), generated a habitat suitability map that displayed zones of high suitability in other areas away from the natural geographical area. Finally, we discuss the usefulness of this study to guide management purposes. Keywords Narrow endemic plants Western Mediterranean basin Euphorbia fontqueriana Real-time kinematic global positioning systems Spatial autocorrelation Maxent Species distribution modelling LiDAR Threatened plant management
Communicated by Daniel Sanchez Mata. & Joana Cursach [email protected] 1
Department of Biology, Laboratory of Botany, Research Group on Plant Biology under Mediterranean Conditions, University of the Balearic Islands, Cra. Valldemossa, km 7.5, 07122 Palma, Balearic Islands, Spain
2
Department of Geography/Geographical Information Systems and Remote Sensing Service, University of the Balearic Islands, Cra. Valldemossa, km 7.5, 07112 Palma, Spain
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Biodiversity and Conservation
Introduction Assessments of the distributions of threatened plant species are of critical importance for improving the efficiency of conservation efforts (Williams et al. 2009), and species distribution models (SDMs) are a valuable aid in the optimisation of these efforts (Fois et al. 2015). SDMs are currently the main tools that predict the spatial distribution of th
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