Global Ecology and Conservation 22 (2020) e01032

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Global Ecology and Conservation

journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/gecco

Original Research Article

Predicting the current and future suitable habitats of the main

dietary plants of the Gobi Bear using MaxEnt modeling
Aili Qin a, 1, Kun Jin b, a, 1, Munkh-Erdene Batsaikhan c, Javkhlan Nyamjav c,
Guangliang Li a, Jia Li d, Yadong Xue a, Ge Sun a, Liji Wu e,
Tuvshintogtokh Indree c, Zuomin Shi a, *, Wenfa Xiao a, **
a
Research Institute of Forest Ecology, Environment and Protection, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Key Laboratory of Biodiversity
Conservation of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Environment of National Forestry
and Grassland Administration Beijing, 100091, China
b
Research Institute of Natural Protected Area, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, 100091, China
c
Laboratory of Vegetation Ecology and Plant Resource, Botanic Garden and Research Institute, Mongolian Academy of Sciences,
Ulaanbaatar, 13330, Mongolia
d
Institute of Desertification Studies, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, 100091, China
e
Inner Mongolian Hulun Lake to National Nature Reserve, Hulunbuir, 021008, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Ephedra equisetina, the Nitraria species complex (N. sibirica, N. roborowskii and N. sphaer-
Received 7 February 2020 ocarpa), and Rheum nanum are the main dietary plants of the Gobi Bear (Ursus arctos
Received in revised form 23 March 2020 gobiensis), a subspecies of the brown bear, found in the Gobi desert of Mongolia. Their
Accepted 23 March 2020
location and distribution range are closely related to the Gobi Bear survival. Analyzing the
impact of climate change on the possible distribution of these species is essential for the
Keywords:
future conservation and management of the Gobi Bear. In this study, we modeled the
Maxent
current and future distribution of the main dietary plants of the Gobi Bear based on one
The Gobi Bear
Highly suitable habitat
representative concentration pathway (RCP2.6) for the period from 2041 to 2060 (2050s)
Dietary plants and 2061-2080 (2070s) using a maximum entropy (MaxEnt) species distribution model.
Our results showed that the precipitation-associated variables had the strongest effect on
the distributions of these species. Among these variables, the precipitation of the coldest
quarter (Bio19) was the most important variable affecting the suitability of the habitats.
Under the current climate conditions, the areas of the highly suitable (>0.6) habitat for E.
equisetina, the Nitraria species complex, and R. nanum were 3,888.51, 23,727.78 and
13,816.88 km2, respectively, accounting for 8%, 52% and 30% of the Great Gobi “A” Strictly
Protected Area. In the year 2050s and 2070s, the highly suitable habitat areas for E.
equisetina and R. nanum will continue to increase and eventually reach to 23% and 36%,
respectively. The Nitraria species complex would first be reduced to 33% in the 2050s and
then increase to 36% in the 2070s. With the climate warming, the highly suitable habitats
of the Gobi Bear’s main dietary plants would shift to the southeast. These results, together
with previous studies about the Gobi Bear distribution can provide useful information and
a reasonable reference for managers to put forward suggestions for better protection of the
Gobi Bear.

* Corresponding author. Research Institute of Forest Ecology, Environment and Protection, Chinese Academy of Forestry, No1 Dongxiaofu, Xiangshan
Road, Beijing, 100091, China.
** Corresponding author. Research Institute of Forest Ecology, Environment and Protection, Chinese Academy of Forestry, No1 Dongxiaofu, Xiangshan
Road, Beijing, 100091, China.
E-mail addresses: shizm@caf.ac.cn (Z. Shi), xiaowenfa@caf.ac.cn (W. Xiao).
1
These authors contributed equally to this work.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2020.e01032
2351-9894/© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
2 A. Qin et al. / Global Ecology and Conservation 22 (2020) e01032

© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC
BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction

Environmental factors and climate change, such as temperature increases, precipitation variability and frequent droughts
have been confirmed to have a profound impact on species distribution range (Driouech et al., 2010; OECD, 2012; Moraitis
et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2019; Wilson et al., 2019). This could lead to expansion, reduction or even shifts of species
geographical ranges (Wei et al., 2018). These changes in species ranges, especially the geographic ranges of dietary plants, are
often related to the abundance of animal food resources. Food supply is the most direct factor determining the survival and
reproduction of wildlife (White, 2008; Zhang et al., 2019). Therefore, detailed habitat assessments, especially for dietary
plants, are the most important step for guiding the conservation of threatened animals (Mace and Lande, 1991).
The Gobi Bear (Ursus arctos gobiensis) is a critically endangered species, that is narrowly distributed in the barren desert of
the Great Gobi “A” Strictly Protected Area (GGSPA) in southwestern Mongolia (Schaller et al., 1993; Luvsamjamba et al., 2016).
The species has been listed on the Mongolian Red List (1987, 1997, 2013) and was recognized by the International Union for
the Conservation of Nature (IUCN, 2008) for its unique living environment and small population size (15-30 individuals; Bold,
1967; Bold and Dulamtseren, 1975; Bugaev and Tumur, 1986; McCarthy et al., 2009; Batsaikhan et al., 2004; Mijiddorj, 2013).
Studies show that the main factors restricting the population size of the Gobi Bear seem to be the extremely arid climatic
conditions and lack of suitable food and water (Batsaikhan et al., 2004). The scarcity of suitable food and water causes the
bears to fight and compete (Tulgat, 1995). Studies based on analyzing the composition of Gobi Bear feces have showed that the
Gobi Bear eats approximately 60e65% Ephedra equisetina, 30-35% Rheum nanum, 20%e30% Nitraria species and a small
amount of little insects, lizards and rodents (Bannikov, 1954; Tulgat, 1993; Mijiddorj, 2013; Luvsamjamba et al., 2016).
Through our many interviews with herders and rangers, investigations and the observations of the Gobi Bear feces along with
information from previous studies (Batsaikhan et al., 2004; Luvsamjamba et al., 2016), we learned that the main summer diet
of the Gobi Bear is the red and fleshy bracts of the E. equisetina seed cones and the fruits of the Nitraria species (Fig. 1a). The
main late summer and fall diets of Gobi bears were the roots of R. nanum (Fig. 1b).
E. equisetina, is an erect or partially procumbent shrub species of Ephedra (Ephedraceae). The shrub is dioecious, usually
1e1.5 m high and has well developed woody stems. It polinates in JuneeJuly and bears seed cone with red and fleshy edible
cone bracts adapted to animal dispersal. (Qin et al., 2013). This shrub habors reletively high genetic diversity and has a wide
distribution than the other species of genus Ephedra (Qin et al., 2013; Wu et al., 2016). It usually grows in the rocky valleys of
the GGSPA (Fig. 2a and b). N. sibirica, N. roborowskii and N. sphaerocarpa are perennial deciduous species of Nitraria

Fig. 1. The Gobi bear Photographed with an infrared camera, Gobi bear’s feces in summer (a) and the big pit after digging Rheum nanum by Gobi bears in fall (b).
 A. Qin et al. / Global Ecology and Conservation 22 (2020) e01032 3

(Nitrariaceae) (APG, 2016). They are salt-tolerant and drought-resistant shrubs of 0.5e2 m height, with many erect stems,
spreading woody branches, fleshy leaves, and white-to-yellowish green flowers. These shrubs tend to expand horizontally
rather than vertically (Galal, 2011) and usually inhabit in gravelly desert, sandy areas in oases and piedmont (Temirbayeva and
Zhang, 2015; Zhou et al., 2015; Su et al., 2016; Abd El-Wahab, 2016. They often show aggregated or contageous patterns (Li
et al., 2007) and bear succulent edible berry-like drupes (Fig. 3) which are important as a food (Pan et al., 1999; Sheahan, 2011;
Shaukat et al., 2012). These three species are mainly distributed in pairs, or even together, with an over-lapping distribution in
GGSPA. Thus; we treated these three species as a complex. R. nanum is a perennial herb with long and stout roots and
decumbent morphologies which are thought to be the avoidance of damage by strong winds (Ohba and Malla, 1988; Sun et al.,
2012) in GGSPA. This species mostly distributed on black gravel beaches (Fig. 2c), north-facing hill slopes and nearly dry
riverbeds (Batsaikhan et al., 2004), sometimes accompanied by E. equisetina (Fig. 2d). Under climate change scenarios, the
geographic location of these dietary plants and whether it is adequate or not is essential for Gobi Bear’s future conservation
and management.
In this study, the MaxEnt algorithm was used to model the response of the main dietary plants of Gobi Bears to climate
change, which will provide a theoretical basis for making management decisions and guiding feeding. Specifically, we tried to
answer the following four questions: (1) What are the key climatic factors that affect the algorithmic distribution of the Gobi
Bear’s main dietary plants? (2) Which habitats are suitable for the Gobi Bear’s main dietary plants under the current climatic
conditions? (3) How will the future climate affect the habitat suitability of the Gobi Bear’s main dietary plants? (4) For a better
survival of the Gobi Bear, which parts of the oasis should have more feeding boxes?

2. Material and methods

2.1. Study area

This study was conducted in the Great Gobi “A” Strictly Protected Area (Fig. 1), which is located in southwestern Mongolia
and occupies 44, 190 km2 (Batsaikhan et al., 2004) or 45, 918 km2 (Tumendemberel et al., 2015). We referred to the latest
literature (Tumendemberel et al., 2015) for this study.

2.2. Species distribution data collection

We conducted a three-year field survey throughout the GGSPA, recorded and georeferenced all natural populations and
isolated individuals of the Gobi Bear’s main dietary plants. In total, we collected 153, 114 and 119 records of E. equisetina, the
Nitraria species complex and R. nanum, respectively. Our investigation route and collection records are shown in Fig. 4.

Fig. 2. The typical habitat and Morphological characteristics of Gobi bear’s favourite food source (a, b, Ephedra equisetina; c, Rheum nanum) and the over-lap
distribution of E. equisetina and R. nanum (d).
4 A. Qin et al. / Global Ecology and Conservation 22 (2020) e01032

Fig. 3. The typical habitat and Morphological characteristics of Gobi bear’s favourite food source (Nitraria sibirica, N. roborowskii and N. sphaerocarpa).

2.3. Environmental variables

Environmental variables, such as the climatic temperature and rainfall are the key factors that affect the range of species
distributions (Li et al., 2019; Kaeslin et al., 2012). Nineteen bioclimatic variables and altitudes are frequently used and have
been reported to be the most typically important variables in species distribution modeling (Guisan and Zimmermann, 2000;
Molloy et al., 2014; Yi et al., 2018). Thus, the 19 environmental variables (Bio1-Bio19) and altitude for the current period
(1950-2000, Hijmans et al., 2005) and the future period (2041e2060 and 2061-2080) were downloaded from the WorldClim
website (https://www.worldclim.org/). For future model prediction, we selected the minimum greenhouse gas emissions
scenario (RCP2.6) under the CCSM4 global climate model (IPCC, 2014) to simulate the habitat suitability distributions of these
plants. All environmental variables used in this model had a 30 s (approximately 1 km2) spatial resolution.

Fig. 4. The presence points of E. equisetina, the Nitraria species complex and R. nanum in the Great Gobi “A" Strictly Protected Area.
 A. Qin et al. / Global Ecology and Conservation 22 (2020) e01032 5

To avoid the high similarity among the environmental variables, Pearson’s correlation coefficient (PCC) was calculated
with R v 3.3.1 (R development Core Team, 2012; https://www.r-project.org/), and those with a Pearson’s correlation coeffi-
cient (PCC)
0.85 were removed from further models (Graham, 2003; Qin et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2018). Finally, we screened
4, 5 and 6 variables for E. equisetina, the Nitraria species complex. and R. nanum, respectively.

2.4. Species distribution modeling

The maximum entropy algorithm (MaxEnt 3.3.3k) (Phillips et al., 2006) (http://www.cs.princeton.edu/wschapire/maxent/
), one of the most robust and advanced bioclimatic modeling approaches for presence-only data (Elith et al., 2006, 2011;
Pearson et al., 2007; Wisz et al., 2008; Kumar and Stohlgren, 2009) was employed to predict the potential suitable habitat of
these dietary plants. Before running the model, we selected the following settings: create response curves; use jackknife to
measure variable importance; random test ¼ 25%; regularized multiplier ¼ 1; maximum background points ¼ 10,000 and
replicates ¼ 1. All other settings remained in the default values (Phillips, 2008).
To evaluate the model performance, we randomly divided the data into training (75%) and testing sets (25%). The area
(AUC) under the receiving operator curve (ROC) was used to assess the accuracy of the model. It has been proven to be an
effective threshold-independent index that can evaluate a model’s ability to discriminate presence from absence (Wei et al.,
2018). In general, the value of AUC ranges from 0 to 1 (Fielding and Bell, 1997; Swets, 1988). An AUC of 0.5 indicates pure
random chance, whereas a value of 1.0 indicates perfect performance (Swets, 1988). The model was trained with the current
bioclimatic variables and projected with future bioclimatic variables.
The suitability maps were calculated using the logistic output of MaxEnt, which ranges from 0 to 1. For visualization and
further analysis, we imported the MaxEnt results into ArcGIS 10.3 and divided the habitat suitability maps into four levels:
unsuitable habitat (0e0.2), low suitability habitat (0.2e0.4), moderate suitability habitat (0.4e0.6); and highly suitable
habitat (0.6e1) (Ansari and Ghoddousi, 2018; Zhang et al., 2019; Convertino et al., 2014).

3. Results

3.1. Model performance and contributions of environmental variables

The results showed that the average test AUC values for the Gobi Bear’s main dietary plants were between 0.993 and 0.996
(±0.001) (Fig. 5), which was higher than 0.5 of a random model, this value is recognized as indicating an excellent model
(Phillips et al., 2006) and showed that the model was highly reliable and could effectively reflect their distribution in the
GGSPA under the current and future climate scenarios.

3.2. Environmental variable importance

The results of the jackknife test indicated that the precipitation of the coldest quarter (Bio19) induced the largest impact on
E. equisetina (61.9%), the Nitraria species complex (64.6%) and R. nanum (61.8%). For E. equisetina, the contribution rate of the
other three environmental factors was the mean diurnal range (16.6%), precipitation of the driest month (16.4%) and pre-
cipitation seasonality (5.1%) (Table 1, Fig. 6a). For the Nitraria species complex, isothermality was the second highest
contributor (17.5%), followed by the precipitation in the driest month (9.7%), precipitation in the driest quarter (6.8%) and
precipitation seasonality (1.4%) (Table 1, Fig. 6b). For R. nanum, the contributions of the mean diurnal range, precipitation in
the driest month, temperature annual range, precipitation seasonality and precipitation of the driest quarter were 4.7%, 13.7%,
5.8%, 2.5%, and 1.5% (Table 1, Fig. 6c), respectively. In conclusion, the cumulative contributions of the precipitation-associated
variables for E. equisetina, the Nitraria species complex and R. nanum were up to 83.4%, 82.5% and 79.5%, respectively.

3.3. Predicted habitat suitability for the Gobi Bear’s main dietary plants

The ecological niche model predicted that under the current climate conditions, the highly suitable (>0.6) habitat area for
E. equisetina was 3, 888.51 km2, including the areas surrounding the Tsagaan Bogd and Atas Inges oases, and parts of the
northwestern corner of GGSPA (Fig. 7, current). Climate warming would promote the highly suitable habitat to gradually
expand into the southern or southeastern parts of the GGSPA (Fig. 7, 2041e2060, 2061e2080), from 3, 888.51 km2 (current) to
9, 120.60 km2 (2050s) and then to 10, 345.66 km2 (2070s) (Table 2), with an increase in mainly the southern part of the Shar
Khulst oasis (Fig. 7, 2041e2060, 2061e2080). Under the current climate conditions, the highly suitable habitat of the Nitraria
species complex covered most of the three oases and its surrounding regions, including the middle major part of the GGSPA
(Fig. 7, current), with an area of 23,727.78 km2 (Table 2), accounting for 52% of the GGSPA. Climate warming will lead to a
highly suitable habitat area reduction of 22% in the 2050s and then an increase of 3% in the 2070s (Table 2; Fig. 7, 2041e2060,
2060e2080). Under the current climate conditions, the range of highly suitable habitat of R. nanum mainly includes parts of
the northwestern corner of the GGSPA and parts of the three oases and their surrounding regions (Fig. 7, current), with a total
area of 13,816.88 km2, accounting for 30% of the GGSPA (Table 2). With climate warming, the geographical range of the highly
suitable habitat will gradually increase to 16, 235.19 km2 in the 2050s and 16, 595.55 km2 in the 2070s (Table 2). The
6 A. Qin et al. / Global Ecology and Conservation 22 (2020) e01032

Fig. 5. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) for the Gobi Bear’s main dietary plants.
 A. Qin et al. / Global Ecology and Conservation 22 (2020) e01032 7

Table 1
Environmental variables used in the study and their percentage contribution.

Code Environmental variables Unit Contribution

Ephedra Nitraria Rheum

Bio1 Annual Mean Temperature C

Bio2 Mean Diurnal Temperature Range (Mean of monthly (max temp - min temp)) C 16.6 14.7
Bio3 Isothermality (Bio2/Bio7) (  100) e 17.5
Bio4 Temperature Seasonality (standard deviation  100) C of V
Bio5 Max Temperature of Warmest Month C

Bio6 Min Temperature of Coldest Month C

Bio7 Annual Temperature Range (Bio5-Bio6) C 5.8

Bio8 Mean Temperature of Wettest Quarter C

Bio9 Mean Temperature of Driest Quarter C

Bio10 Mean Temperature of Warmest Quarter C

Bio11 Mean Temperature of Coldest Quarter C

Bio12 Annual Precipitation mm

Bio13 Precipitation of Wettest Month mm
Bio14 Precipitation of Driest Month mm 16.4 9.7 13.7
Bio15 Precipitation Seasonality (Coefficient of Variation) C of V 5.1 1.4 2.5
Bio16 Precipitation of Wettest Quarter mm
Bio17 Precipitation of Driest Quarter mm 6.8 1.5
Bio18 Precipitation of Warmest Quarter mm
Bio19 Precipitation of Coldest Quarter mm 61.9 64.6 61.8
Alt Altitude m

Note: The highlighted variables, which were selected through a multi-collinearity test, were used in modeling.

suitability distribution maps showed that the location of the highly suitable habitat moved southward, with a loss in the
northwestern corner of the GGSPA and most of the Atas Inges oasis (Fig. 7, 2041e2060, 2061e2080).

4. Discussion

This was the first study to use a niche model to explore the impacts of global climate change on the geographical range of
the main dietary plants of the Gobi Bear in the GGSPA. Under the current climate conditions, the highly suitable habitat of the
Nitraria species complex was high, accounting for more than 50% of the GGSPA. In comparison, the highly suitable habitats of
E. equisetina and R. nanum were relatively low, at only 8% and 30% of the area, respectively. This result indicated that the
Nitraria species complex was more adaptable to the Gobi Desert terrain and dry climate than the E. equisetina and R. nanum.
For the Gobi Bear’s main dietary plants, the predictors related to precipitation were the main factors affecting habitat
suitability. In particular, the precipitation in the coldest quarter was the most important environmental predictor. E. equi-
setina, the Nitraria species complex and R. nanum were all perennial plants (shrubs or herbs), whose perennial roots were
buried in the soil throughout the very cold winter. The precipitation of the coldest quarter has the potential to alleviate soil
drought, supply nitrogen fertilizer to the soil through nitrogen compounds in the water from the snow and moisten the
underground roots to help the perennial plants germinate in the following spring. In addition, other predictors related to
precipitation such as the precipitation in the driest month and precipitation in the driest quarter were also important factors
affecting the habitat suitability of the Gobi Bear’s main dietary plants. Precipitation plays a key role in the growth of plants
and in species occurrence (Thapa et al., 2018; Pearson and Dawson, 2003), especially for species distributed in extremely arid
areas where precipitation is a rare and valuable resource. It can directly affect plant survival. During the course of our field
survey across the Gobi Desert, we found a large number of plants that had died from desiccation due to the lack of water. Of
course, the temperature-related factors (such as the mean diurnal range, isothermality and temperature annual range in our
study) were also important, which can directly regulate the photosynthesis of the plants and further affect the plant pro-
duction and reproduction through the intensity of the light (Zhang et al., 2019; Hawkins et al., 2003).
Most of the highly suitable habitat for the Gobi Bear’s main dietary plants is located in the southern half of the GGSPA. It
mainly consists of the Atas Inges, Shar Khulst, Tsagaan Bogd oases and its southern region, where the Gobi Bears live today
(McCarthy et al., 2009; Batsaikhan et al., 2004). This almost identical distribution pattern with Gobi Bear’s distribution range
suggests that suitable food resources are a limiting factor for the distribution of Gobi Bears. Previous studies also indicated
that suitable food is a key factor limiting the population size of Gobi Bears, and the lack of suitable food will cause bears to
fight and compete (Tulgat, 1995). Under the current climate conditions, the highly suitable habitat area for the Nitraria species
complex was the largest (23,727.78 km2) compared to those of the other two dietary plants and was slightly larger than the
size of Gobi Bear’s present distribution range (23,619.18 km2) (Batsaikhan et al., 2004). This condition is beneficial for Gobi
Bears survival. E. equisetina had the smallest highly suitable habitat area (only 3,888.51 km2), which accounted for 8% and 16%
of the GGSPA and the Gobi Bear’s present distribution range, respectively. In addition, there was almost no distribution in the
Shar Khulst oasis. Because the Gobi Bear home range sizes vary seasonally with food availability (Zhirnov and Iluinsky, 1986),
the summer main diets of the Gobi Bear are fruits from Nitraria and Ephedra (Batsaikhan et al., 2004; Luvsamjamba et al.,
8 A. Qin et al. / Global Ecology and Conservation 22 (2020) e01032

Fig. 6. Jackknife of the regularized training gain for the Gobi Bear’s main dietary plants. a, E. equisetina; b, Nitraria species complex; c, R. nanum

2016). Therefore, it is not difficult to surmise that the Gobi Bears are mainly more active around the Atas Inges and Tsagaan
Bogd oases during the summer. The highly suitable habitat area of R. nanum was 13,816.88 km2, accounting for 30% and 59% of
the GGSPA and Gobi Bear’s present distribution area, respectively, which is not adequate to satisfy the bear’s need for food
based on the current conditions. Considering the small distribution of R. nanum in Shar Khulst together with the location of
the existing feeding boxes, we suggest adding more feeding boxes in the Shar Khulst oasis to meet the larger demand for food
resources before the bears go into hibernation.
As the climate continues to warm, the highly suitable habitat of the Gobi Bear’s main dietary plants will tend toward the
southeast, moving closer to the Shar Khulst and Tsagaan Bogd oases, which suggests that the distribution of Gobi Bears may
also further shrink to the southeast. Decades of studies on the range of Gobi Bears have shown that their range has been
gradually shrinking (Mijiddorj, 2006; Sokolov and Orlov, 1980; Bold, 1967; Bannikov, 1954) with climate change, and the
current habitat is only 40% of the historical range. Because food is the main limiting factor for the distribution of Gobi Bears
(Tulgat, 1995), together with our predictions for the distribution of the Gobi Bear’s main dietary plants, we advise the
management department to take appropriate artificial measures to save the Gobi Bears, such as conserving the habitat of the
dietary plants, adding feeding spots or planting the main dietary plants in the suitable places.
In our study, the maximum entropy model was used to evaluate the habitat suitability of the Gobi Bear’s main dietary
plants under the current and future climate change scenarios in the GGSPA. Although our work was limited on protecting
Gobi Bears, which are of great concern and conservation interest to governments and conservationists, it played an important
 A. Qin et al. / Global Ecology and Conservation 22 (2020) e01032 9

Fig. 7. Habitat suitability maps for Gobi bear’s main dietary plants in the Great Gobi “A” Strictly Protected Area under current and future climate conditions.

role in determining the habitat suitability of the Gobi Bear’s main dietary plants based on the high precision of the selected
mode. The species distribution model has also been confirmed to be a valid tool for generating valuable information for the
conservation management of rare species in well-surveyed areas (Marcer et al., 2013). Therefore, our results have certain
significance as references for the conservation and management of the Gobi Bears in the GGSPA. Based on our prediction
results, we make the following two suggestions:

1) Currently, we need to increase the feeding points in the SharKhulst oasis, which is critical for Gobi Bear’s protection. This
recommendation is not just because the highly suitable habitat area of the Gobi Bear’s main dietary plants in this oasis is
relatively small and the food before they enter hibernation is relatively scarce, but the Shar Khulst oasis is also the gateway
that connects the other two oases.
2) Under climate warming, the highly suitable habitat of the Gobi Bear’s main dietary plants would move toward the
southeast. We need to consider where and how to provide more food for the bears to protect the species.

Author contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: ALQ, KJ, Tuvshintogtokh I., ZMS and WFX. Conducted the field investigation:
ALQ, GLL, Javkhlan N., Munkh-Erdene B., JL, YDX, GS, LJW and YW. Analyzed the data: ALQ. Contributed the basemaps:
Munkh-Erdene B.,. Wrote the paper: ALQ.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
10 A. Qin et al. / Global Ecology and Conservation 22 (2020) e01032

Table 2
The habitat suitability area and percentage of the Gobi Bear’s main dietary plants in the Great Gobi “A” Strictly Protected Area under different climate
scenarios.

Species Period/climate scenario classes Area (km2) Proportion (%)

E. equisetina Current High 3, 888.51 8
Moderate 13, 637.24 30
Low 17, 646.76 38
Unsuitable 10, 745.49 23
2041e2060 (RCP2.6) High 9, 120.60 20
Moderate 15, 510.38 34
Low 14, 383.88 31
Unsuitable 6, 903.14 15
2061e2080 (RCP2.6) High 10, 345.66 23
Moderate 16, 543.33 36
Low 13, 480.67 29
Unsuitable 5, 548.33 12
Nitraria species complex Current High 23, 727.78 52
Moderate 8, 344.02 18
Low 8, 533.02 19
Unsuitable 5, 313.18 12
2041e2060 (RCP2.6) High 15, 282.71 33
Moderate 12, 731.54 28
Low 9, 237.87 20
Unsuitable 8, 665.88 19
2061e2080 (RCP2.6) High 16, 559.55 36
Moderate 9, 988.87 22
Low 7, 680.34 17
Unsuitable 11, 689.24 25
R. nanum Current High 13, 816.88 30
Moderate 18, 483.22 40
Low 10, 568.97 23
Unsuitable 3, 048.93 7
2041e2060 (RCP2.6) High 16, 235.19 35
Moderate 18, 069.04 39
Low 9, 009.57 20
Unsuitable 2, 604.19 6
2061e2080 (RCP2.6) High 16, 559.55 36
Moderate 9, 988.87 22
Low 7, 680.34 17
Unsuitable 11, 689.24 25

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Liji Wu (Inner Mongolian Hulun Lake to National Nature Reserve) and Yun Wu (the Hulun
Buir Municipal Committee Office) for their translation work for us during our field investigation in Mongolia. We sincerely
thank all members of the Great Gobi “A” Strictly Protected Area for their great help with the field investigation and all
members of the project group that provide the supplies for us. We also thank the handling editor and the two anonymous
reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions for the manuscript. This study was supported by the Mongolian Gobi
Bear Technical Assistance Project of the Chinese Government.

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