Assessment of the Morphological Pattern of the Lebanon Cedar under Changing Climate: The Mediterranean Case

Ali Uğur Özcan, Javier Velázquez, Víctor Rincón, Derya Gülçin and Kerim Çiçek
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Ali Uğur Özcan: Faculty of Forestry, Department of Landscape Architecture, Çankırı Karatekin University, Çankırı 18200, Turkey
Javier Velázquez: Faculty of Sciences and Arts, Department of Environment and Agroforestry, Catholic University of Ávila, 05005 Ávila, Spain
Víctor Rincón: Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmacology, Complutense University of Madrid, Plaza de Ramón y Cajal, s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Derya Gülçin: Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Landscape Architecture, Aydın Adnan Menderes University, Aydın 09100, Turkey
Kerim Çiçek: Faculty of Science, Department of Biology, Section of Zoology, Ege University, Izmir 35100, Turkey

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 6, 1-18

Abstract: The effects of climate change on species can influence the delicate balance in ecosystems. For this reason, conservation planning needs to take account of connectivity and the related ecological processes within the framework of climate change. In this study, we focus on the change in the ecological connectivity of the Lebanon cedar ( Cedrus libani A. Rich.), which is widely distributed in the Mediterranean, particularly in the Amanus and Taurus Mountains. To this end, we evaluated the changes in spatial units providing connectivity in the potential and future distributions of the species through ecological niche modelling, morphological spatial pattern analysis, and landscape metrics. The results suggest that the species is moving to the northeast. According to the future projections, we predict that the potential habitat suitability of the species will shrink significantly and that, in the case of pessimistic scenarios, the extent of the suitable habitats will decrease, particularly in the western and central Taurus Mountain chains. A comparison of potential and future cores indicates that there will be a slight increase under the RCP 4.5 2050 scenario, whereas core areas will decrease in the RCP 4.5 2070, RCP 8.5 2050, and RCP 8.5 2070 scenarios. In addition, it is predicted that bridges would increase in the RCP 4.5 2070 and RCP 8.5 2050 scenarios but decrease in other scenarios.

Keywords: ecological niche modelling; ecological connectivity; landscape metrics; landscape pattern; climate scenarios; Anatolia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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