Assessment of landscape change in the context of Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) in the Terai ARC landscape
Student name: Mr Subhodip Mukherjee
Guide: Dr Sudipta Chatterjee
Year of completion: 2015
Host Organisation: Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr. K. Ramesh
Abstract: The Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus) is a globally endangered species which is only limited to tropical forests. In India, it is distributed mainly in the tropical forests of North and Northeast India and South India. Their habitats are largely threatened by logging, encroachment and large scale forest conversion both legally and illegally. This study is carried out the landscape level of the Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) to evaluate the distribution of elephants in the year 2002 and its suitable habitat and in the year 2014 without the incorporation of climate factors and then the climate factors of 2014 were put into the model which gave a very striking change from the earlier ones. The bio-physical and anthropogenic variables were then kept as constant and the model was run with the climatic variable of 2050 and 2080 using the RCPs 2.6 and 8.5 given by GFDL-CM3 in IPCC Fifth Assessment report as these two RCPs are the opposite of one another and this would very well describe the resilience and the behaviour of the elephants if such scenario does occur. In was concluded that, the elephant being a very resilient species would continue to survive in this landscape but it distribution will change from the valleys to the plains resulting in more Human Elephant conflict and damage to both sides.
Keywords: SDM, MaxEnt, climate change, IPCC
