This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Majestic African antelopes known as gemsbok have been roaming the U.S. Southwest since their introduction in the 1960s and 1970s.
Brought to New Mexico as a game species for hunting, gemsbok quickly settled in, expanding more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) from their introduction point. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers say that's due to their exceptional adaptations to arid conditions, which they predict will dramatically expand under climate change. In a new study, the researchers reveal the potential extent of the exotic species' spread by 2100, with suitable habitat spilling well beyond New Mexico into Texas, Arizona, Utah, California and even as far north as southern Washington and Montana.
Should gemsbok disperse and proliferate in all of these areas, the impacts on cattle, native wildlife and plant communities could be significant. The team mapped where gemsbok could survive under future climate scenarios based on their current habitat preferences. The study is published in the Journal of Mammalogy.
"We turned toward participant science to do this work. When people contribute photos to apps like iNaturalist, the occurrence records get scraped into something called the Global Biodiversity Information Facility," said the study's lead author, Nathan Alexander. "From that, we were able to use a statistical method called Maxent to find habitat associations for gemsbok." Alexander began the research as a doctoral student in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at U. of I.
He's now a postdoctoral scholar at Southern Illinois University. For every gemsbok occurrence, the researchers looked at factors like temperature seasonality and precipitation, vegetation cover, terrain ruggedness and human population density to paint a picture of where the animals spend time. Then they looked for similar habitat patterns across space and time to predict where gemsbok might go in the future.
They found that many suitable habitats that now exist as isolated pockets will likely coalesce into larger, more contiguous habitats under future climate scenarios. "When there are these isolated patches, there might be dispersal barriers that they can't cross to get to the next patch. But when these patches coalesce and connect, there might be increased opportunities for gemsbok to invade and expand into these novel habitats.
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