Breeding range shift of the red-crowned crane (Grus japonensis) under climate change

RESEARCH ARTICLE Breeding range shift of the red-crowned crane (Grus japonensis) under climate change Liwei Liu1☯, Jishan Liao2☯, Yongbo Wu3, Yinlong ZhangID1* 1 Collaborative Innovation Center of Sustainable Forestry in Southern China of Jiangsu Province, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, P.R. China, 2 Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, 3 College of Biology and the Environment, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, Jiang Su, P.R. China ☯ These authors contributed equally to this work. * ecoenvylz@163.com Abstract The red-crowned crane (Grus japonensis) is an endangered species listed by International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) HARRIS J (2013). The largest population of this species is distributed mainly in China and Russia, which is called continental population SU L (2012)–Curt D (1996). This population is migratory, which migrates from its breeding range located in Northeast China and Southern Russia, to the wintering range in the south of China to spend the winter every year. The breeding range of this species is critical for red- crowned crane to survive and maintain its population. Previous studies showed the negative effects of habitat loss and degradation on the breeding area of red-crowned crane Ma Z (1998), Claire M (2019). Climate change may also threat the survival of this endangered species. Previous studies investigated the impacts of climate change on the breeding range or wintering range in China Wu (2012), [1]. However, no study was conducted to assess the

potential impacts of climate change on the whole breeding range of this species. Here, we used bioclimatic niche modeling to predict the potential breeding range of red-crowned crane under current climate conditions and project onto future climate change scenarios. Our results show that the breeding range of the continental population of red-crowned crane will shift northward over this century and lose almost all of its current actual breeding range. The climate change will also change the country owning the largest portion of breeding range from China to Russia, suggesting that Russia should take more responsibility to pre- serve this endangered species in the future. Introduction The red-crowned crane (Grus japonensis) is among the largest and rarest cranes in the world [2]. It has great cultural value in China as it is the symbol of luck, longevity and fidelity. Histor- ically, this species was distributed widely in the eastern Asia. However, the range of this species contracted and its population declined greatly over last centuries, reaching lowest number in the 1950s [3,4]. Although the number of red-crowned cranes is increasing in the recent years due to great conservation efforts, the population size of this endangered species is still low [5,3]. Red-crowned crane has been listed as first-class national key protected wild animal in China [6]. It is also listed as an endangered species by IUCN [7]. This species is distributed PLOS ONE PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0229984 March 12, 2020 1 / 16 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111

a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Liu L, Liao J, Wu Y, Zhang Y (2020) Breeding range shift of the red-crowned crane (Grus japonensis) under climate change. PLoS ONE 15(3): e0229984. https://doi.org/10.1371/ journal.pone.0229984 Editor: Bi-Song Yue, Sichuan University, CHINA Received: June 4, 2019 Accepted: February 19, 2020 Published: March 12, 2020 Peer Review History: PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process; therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. The editorial history of this article is available here: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0229984 Copyright: © 2020 Liu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files. Funding: This project was supported by National Key R&D Program of China (2016YFC0502704) and Priority Academic Program Development of