Impact of Climate Change on Two High-Altitude Restricted and Endemic Flycatchers of The Western Ghats, India

Climate change has been influencing bird species in different ways. Some documented changes include reduction in geographic range, decline in abundance and changes in the seasonality of migratory bird species in spring after overwintering in the tropics. We undertook a study on two species of high-elevation dependant, restricted-range flycatchers: Black-and-orange Flycatcher (BOF) Ficedula nigrorufa (Jerdon, 1839) and Nilgiri Flycatcher (NIF) Eumyias albicaudatus (Jerdon, 1840), to determine how they respond to the predicted climate change scenarios. We used 194 and 300 independent occurrence points for BOF and NIF to develop climate models and understand the species responses to climate change scenarios using MaxEnt algorithm. We also used isothermality, mean temperature of coldest quarter and slope for developing the BOF model. For NIF, we used isothermality, mean temperature of coldest quarter, precipitation of driest month, precipitation of warmest quarter, slope and enhanced vegetation index. The mean temperature of coldest quarter (BIO 11) was the most crucial variable influencing climate suitability for both the species. The model predicted the current extent of occurrence of 6532 sq. km as suitable for BOF and 12,707 sq. km for NIF, within their ranges. However, only 27% and 24% of the existing suitable area of BOF and NIF respectively, falls within the protected area network in the Western Ghats. Future predictions suggest suitable area loss to the tune of 20–31% for BOF and 36–46% for NIF by 2050