Future climatically suitable areas for bats in South Asia

Climate change majorly impacts biodiversity in diverse regions across the world, including South Asia, a megadiverse area with heterogeneous climatic and vegetation regions. However, climate impacts on bats in this region are not well-studied, and it is unclear whether climate effects will follow patterns predicted in other regions. We address this by assessing projected near-future changes in climatically suitable areas for 110 bat species from South Asia. We used ensemble ecological niche modelling with four algorithms (random forests, artificial neural networks, multivariate adaptive regression splines and maximum entropy) to define climatically suitable areas under current conditions (1970-2000). We then extrapolated near future (2041-2060) suitable areas under four projected scenarios (combining two global climate models and two shared socioeconomic pathways, SSP2: middle-of-the-road and SSP5: fossil-fuelled development). Projected future changes in suitable areas varied across species, with most species predicted to retain most of the current area or lose small amounts. When shifts occurred due to projected climate change, new areas were generally northward of current suitable areas. Suitability hotspots, defined as regions suitable for >30% of species, were generally predicted to become smaller and more fragmented. Overall, climate change in the near future may not lead to dramatic shifts in the distribution of bat species in South Asia, but local hotspots of biodiversity may be lost. Our results offer insight into climate change effects in less studied areas and can inform conservation planning, motivating reappraisals of conservation priorities and strategies for bats in South Asia.