Global climate change has recently received attention as it affects species distribution at all scales. Many species, including invasive species, have indicated a shift in their ecological ranges in response to climate change. However, little is known about the impacts of climate change on house crows (Corvus splendens) habitat distribution in Tanzania. We assessed the impacts of climate change on current and future potential suitable habitat distribution for house crows using Maxent 3.4.1. We estimated the extent of both current and future potential suitable habitats for house crows, the persistence of house crows’ suitable habitats through time, and the size of suitable habitat in protected areas of Tanzania. Current suitable habitat distribution tallied with the observed house crow distribution along the coast of the Indian Ocean. We identified new potential suitable areas around Lake Victoria. Future climate change will likely cause extreme expansion of house crows throughout this century; interestingly, contemporary house crow suitable niche will likely persist towards the end of this century, as we predicted overlap between potential current and future suitable niche. We predicted 51,000 km2 as the currently suitable area, which was more than 20 times less than predicted future potential ranges in Tanzania. Future climate change impacts are estimated to expand suitable habitat for house crows into protected areas of Tanzania. These findings suggest that the biodiversity would continue to experience threats from house crow invasions. Mitigation measures against house crow are inevitable, to alleviate socio-economic impacts likely from house crow invasions in Tanzania.
Cite this paper
Ndimuligo, S. A. , Mbwambo, B. N. , Kavana, P. Y. and Nkwabi, A. K. (2022). Predicting the Impacts of Climate Change on the Potential Suitable Habitat Distribution of House Crows (Corvus splendens) in Tanzania. Open Access Library Journal, 9, e9014. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/oalib.1109014.
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