Forecasting shifts in habitat suitability of three marine predators suggests a rapid decline in inter-specific overlap under future climate change.

ABSTRACT: Understanding how environmental and climate change can alter habitat overlap of marine predators has great value for the management and conservation of marine ecosystems. Here, we estimated spatiotemporal changes in habitat suitability and inter-specific overlap among three marine predators: Baltic gray seals (Halichoerus grypus), harbor seals (Phoca vitulina), and harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) under contemporary and future conditions. Location data (>200 tagged individuals) were collected in the southwestern region of the Baltic Sea; one of the fastest-warming semi-enclosed seas in the world. We used the maximum entropy (MaxEnt) algorithm to estimate changes in total area size and overlap of species-specific habitat suitability between 1997-2020 and 2091-2100.

SUBMITTER: van Beest FM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9257519 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature