RESEARCH ARTICLE Predicted Shifts in Small Mammal Distributions and Biodiversity in the Altered Future Environment of Alaska: An Open Access Data and Machine Learning Perspective A. P. Baltensperger*, F. Huettmann EWHALE Lab, Department of Biology and Wildlife, Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, United States of America *
[email protected] Abstract Climate change is acting to reallocate biomes, shift the distribution of species, and alter OPEN ACCESS community assemblages in Alaska. Predictions regarding how these changes will affect the biodiversity and interspecific relationships of small mammals are necessary to pro-actively Citation: Baltensperger AP, Huettmann F (2015) Predicted Shifts in Small Mammal Distributions and inform conservation planning. We used a set of online occurrence records and machine Biodiversity in the Altered Future Environment of learning methods to create bioclimatic envelope models for 17 species of small mammals Alaska: An Open Access Data and Machine Learning (rodents and shrews) across Alaska. Models formed the basis for sets of species-specific Perspective. PLoS ONE 10(7): e0132054. distribution maps for 2010 and were projected forward using the IPCC (Intergovernmental doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0132054 Panel on Climate Change) A2 scenario to predict distributions of the same species for Editor: Franck Courchamp, Ecologie, Systématique 2100. We found that distributions of cold-climate, northern, and interior small mammal spe- & Evolution, FRANCE cies experienced large decreases in area while shifting northward, upward in elevation, and Received: January 16, 2015 inland across the state. In contrast, many southern and continental species expanded Accepted: June 9, 2015 throughout Alaska, and also moved down-slope and toward the coast.