| dc.description.abstract |
Ecological niche models use species occurrence data and environmental predictors to create a correlative model of the environmental conditions that satisfies a species’ ecological niche
and goes on to predict the relative suitability of the habitat. The existing literature confirms that
for only a hundred years, the lion species has experienced a 90% decline in its population.
However, existing studies have not attempted to model the ecological niche for the lions and
neither have they tried to predict the future habitat suitability of the lions and use this information
in trying to understand how the current habitat is likely to change in the future and well the current
habitat is likely to support the lions in the future amidst the effects of climate change. This study
examined the ecological niche for the lions in Masai Mara National Reserve in Narok-West and
Kiligoris sub counties in Narok County, Kenya. Both future and current environmental predictors
were acquired from WorldClim whereas species occurrence data was acquired from GBIF
respectively. Using Maxent’s dismo package in R, current and future, 2050 and 2070 habitat
suitability was predicted. Using future predictions, a change in habitat suitability was detected. the
results indicated a progressive decline in habitat suitability for the years 2050 and 2070. Land use
land cover maps for two epochs; 2013 and 2018, showed an increase in bare land and a decrease
in vegetation cover thus supplementing the findings of the study. However, this study recommends
that species occurrence data from Kenya Wildlife Services and local environmental predictors be
used as these are these are more accurate and may yield better results than the ones from
WorldClim and GBIF. |
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