Environmental niche forecasts of globally threatened Yellow-throated Bulbul, Pycnonotus xantholaemus for conservation prospects in the Deccan peninsula, India

Abstract

Yellow-throated Bulbul, Pycnonotus xantholaemus is an endemic, rare and threatened species with discontinuous distribution across Deccan peninsula. IUCN has enlisted surveys for newer populations as one of the conservation measures. We used maxent algorithm to generate environmental niche model for further surveys. We looked into climatic envelope at occurrence points and contrast it with background climatic envelope. We compared the model for current scenario and future scenario to assess change in extent of predicted niche over time. We used six variables: climatic, topographical and vegetation layers, and a final set of 102 verified presence locations to generate the model. Topographic ruggedness index and precipitation of wettest month (Bio13) were the strong predictors for Yellow-throated Bulbul niche. Model predicts highly discontinuous and small fragments totalling 7% area of peninsular India as suitable niche. Only 10 % of predicted niche falls within Indias protected area network. Loss of habitat due to granite quarrying and anthropogenic pressure will be a bigger threat than climate change.