Herpetological Conservation and Biology 12(2):522–547. Submitted: 30 August 2016; Accepted: 11 July 2017; Published: 31 August 2017. Projected Future Bioclimate-Envelope Suitability for Reptile and Amphibian Species of Concern in South Central USA Eric Ariel L. Salas1,5, Virginia A. Seamster2, Nicole M. Harings1, Kenneth G. Boykin1, Guillermo Alvarez3, and Keith W. Dixon4 1Department of Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Ecology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003, USA 2Ecological and Environmental Planning Division, New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87507, USA 3Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas 79968, USA 4NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton University Forrestal Campus, Princeton, New Jersey 08540, USA 5Corresponding author, email:
[email protected] Abstract.—Future climate change has impacts on the distribution of species. Using species distribution models (SDM), we modeled the bioclimatic envelopes of four herpetofauna species in the South Central USA including two salamanders, the Sacramento Mountain Salamander (Aneides hardii) and the Jemez Mountains Salamander (Plethodon neomexicanus), one anuran, the Chiricahua Leopard Frog (Lithobates chiricahuensis), and one turtle, the Rio Grande Cooter (Pseudemys gorzugi). We used Generalized Linear Model, Random Forest, Boosted Regression Tree, Maxent, and Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines, and binary ensembles to develop the present day distributions of the species based on climate-driven models alone. We projected future distributions of the species using data from four climate models run according to two greenhouse gas concentration pathways (RCP 2.6 and RCP 8.5). Our model results projected losses and gains in suitable bioclimatic envelopes for the years 2050 and 2070.