2017 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Prediction of biodiversity change of the wetland ecosystem with the progress of climate change and land modification
| Project/Area Number |
17F17387
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| Research Institution | Toho University |
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Principal Investigator |
西廣 淳 東邦大学, 理学部, 准教授 (60334330)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
KIM JI YOON 東邦大学, 理学部, 外国人特別研究員
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| Project Period (FY) |
2017-11-10 – 2020-03-31
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| Keywords | Ecological niche model / Aquatic plant / Wetland / Culturomics / Climate change / Core habitat / Biodiversity |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
Our objective was to evaluate current habitat condition using national-wide records of wetland species (cf. primarily focused on the aquatic plants) and predict spatial changes against different climate and urban development scenarios. The core work during the first fiscal year was establishing occurrence database of target species and integrating environmental factors in the study extent.
We consolidated occurrence records of 163 aquatic plant species from the national and global database. Occurrence records without geographical coordinate were digitized if site information was clearly identified or it was excluded from the database. Collected species records were checked for its spatial accuracy and duplicated records were merged into single data. And national level environmental layers, including topographic, land cover, population, remote sensing derived indexes, and RCP climate scenarios was established with same spatial extent. Environmental factors were grouped in to meteorological, topographical, hydrologic relates, anthropogenic relates, and others. To minimize the effect of coordinate bias, all environmental raster layers were projected into Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system based on geodetic reference system 1980. We further collected the culturomic data of 3,457 endangered species listed in Red List-Japan for a practical sharing of our results with society. In the following fiscal year, ecological niche modeling and pattern analysis of selected wetland species will be done with current species and environmental data set.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
1: Research has progressed more than it was originally planned.
Reason
Preparation and consolidation of input data for ecological niche modeling and culturomic analysis were the main objectives of this fiscal year. The planned data set, including species occurrence records, national-level environmental factors, and web search data of endangered species, was collected and cleaned properly for the following analysis. Especially, web search data of 3,457 Red List species covers 14 years periods, which covers longer periods than we originally planned. As we are in the phase of initial setting of modeling environment, it seems that we are ahead of our original schedule. Besides, we began preliminary analysis of mapping headwater wetlands, which is one of the core refuges for cold water adapted endangered species. This dataset will be also included in our habitat modeling part.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
1) Ecological niche model of wetland species: Based on the collected observation data of wetland species and environmental scenarios, we will make ecological niche models of endangered species. We will apply ensemble forecasting approach to predict the habitat suitability of wetland species. Local diversity of wetland species will be estimated based on the habitat suitability of groups of wetland species.
2) Mapping core area of selected wetland types: Spatial information of wetland habitat is essential to establishing conservation plan at the regional or national level. But, the quantity of information is rather biased on the major wetland types (i.e., lake or lowland wetlands). We will identify the national distribution of less-focused wetland types (i.e. headwater wetland) using various GIS and RS techniques. The distribution of these wetland types will also be compared with the presence of endangered species and the results of habitat suitability from our ecological niche model.
3) Culturomic research of endangered species: During the last fiscal year, we collected web search data of 3,457 species. This data set includes 5 extinct species in the wild, 80 extinct species, 194 critically endangered species, 788 endangered species, and 829 vulnerable species. We will analyze the trend and pattern of social perception related to the wildlife species listed in the Red List-Japan. Various text mining techniques and sentimental analysis will be done to evaluate perceptions of important wetland sites and wetland species.
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Research Products
(1 results)
