Current and predicted future distribution of the moor frog under climate change on the territory of Right-Bank Polissia of Ukraine
Abstract
Amongst the 13 amphibian species inhabiting the territory of the Right-Bank Polissia — the Northern region of Ukraine — the moor frog Rana arvalis has been reported historically to survive at the edge of its range with recently reported decreasing populations. However, the species does not benefit from any particular conservation status in this area. Here we investigated the current distribution of this species on the territory of Right-Bank Polissia (namely Volyn, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Lviv and Kyiv regions of Ukraine) where 177 individuals were censused from our field monitoring and historical data. Based on route counts in typical habitats, we estimated the occurrence of the moor frog from 0.04 to 11 individuals per 100 m. Based on these field data, a GIS-modelling using an initial set of 104 bioclimatic factors (World-Clim database) identified about 1/3 (≈34.7%, AUC = 0.986) of the Right-Bank Polissia territory as currently potentially favourable for this species with the largest contribution driven by two major climatic factors, temperature and precipitation, supplemented by elevation as a non-climatic driver. When constructing a probabilistic model based on predicted changes in bioclimatic factors by 2050 (MIROC-6 ssp126), it was determined that the area of climatically suitable habitat for the moor frog will significantly decrease to ≈15.7% (AUC = 0.891), showing negative trends in the availability of the suitable habitats for the species on the studied territory. This can be interpreted as a result of reduction of favourable habitats and spawning places for the moor frog due to changes in the most relevant climate-related drivers, temperature and precipitation. Further, relatively low tolerance of the moor frog to anthropogenic impacts and its preference of ecotone areas may exacerbate the patterns. All these factors must be taken into account for developing operational management plans for the protection of this amphibian in the future. Since Polissia plays a key role in the conservation of many groups of native biota, its wide diversity of habitats requires urgent conservation measures in order to save this local hotspot of biodiversity in the context of global changes. This study provides further knowledge for compiling reports on the status of biodiversity to the Secretariat of the Bern Convention, officially ratified by Ukraine.
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