Importance of soil data resolution in assessing habitat loss using ecological niche modelling

• Main Author: Suguna Balakrishnan
• Format: Undergraduate Final Project Report
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://discol.umk.edu.my/id/eprint/5904/

Sabah has undergone a brisk habitat loss especially for dipterocarps. Based on the study conducted, the studied species are being threatened for extinction. This study uses Ecological niche modellingderived using MAXENT with Sabah dipterocarp species used to calculate percentage of habitat loss for three species of Shorea by referring to regional IUCN Red List conservation. Three species from genera Shorea selected for this study are Shorea almon, Shorea ovata and Shorea rubella. The area of habitat loss for studied species with the total area of the species occupied in Sabah is 18 207.70 km² (63.1 %) for Shorea almon, 7 761.27 km² (48.4 %) for Shorea ovata and 743.17 km² (96.1 %) for Shorea rubella. According to this study, Shorea rubella is in Critically Endangered category, while, Shorea almon and Shorea ovata in Endangered and Vulnerable status under A2, A3 and A4 IUCN Red List Criterion. ENM is a highly suitable tool to calculate percentage of habitat loss which is accurate with high resolution environmental data. This assessment on habitat loss using low resolution soil data (HWSD) that gives uncertainty in prediction of species at 30 arc second (- 1km²) grid distributed into 6 arcs second (- 0.04 km²) grid in the MAXENT model. Low soil resolution data is not suitable enough to study exact soil suitability of a species which this leads to error in calculating percentage of habitat loss of the species. Soil data resolution is important to give accurate and precise data on species existence with soil suitability of its habitat while assessing habitat loss using MAXENT software for Ecological Niche Modelling.