CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2018
| Author | Maguire, Christopher |
|---|---|
| Title | Modeling and Assessing the Current and Future Habitat of the Irish Hare (Lepus Timidus Hibernicus) Using GIS |
| Summary | The Irish hare lepus timidus Hibernicus is endemic to the island of Ireland and has been subject to historic and current conservation concern due to a number of identified and perceived threats. Populations have experienced declines in recent years, and although often attributed to agricultural intensification, there are several other influencing factors. The invasive European hare lepus Europaeus has successfully naturalized in many countries across the Eurasian continent, including a small but established population in Northern Ireland. Changing climatic conditions are predicted to cause a contraction in the bioclimatic range of the endemic, and an expansion in favor of the invasive. Furthermore, existing bioclimatic models fail to account for the loss of available habitat due to anthropogenic disturbance, namely urban fabric and increasing human population densities. The study aims to conduct a combined assessment of these threats, conducting a habitat suitability analysis using ArcGIS 10.2.2 to determine available territory, as well as predicting likely future distribution based on changing climatic conditions using the maximum entropy species distribution modeling approach (MaxEnt). Although current conditions are favorable, suitable territory was determined to be circa 20% less than when calculated using solely bioclimatic variables as in previous studies. However, combined with predicted future climatic conditions, and accounting for a possible competitive exclusion due to European hare colonization, available habitat for the endemic is reduced to a fraction of its current size. |
| Supervisor | Lagutov, Viktor |
| Department | Environment Sciences and Policy MSc |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2018/maguire_christopher.pdf |
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