Impact of global environmental changes on the range contraction of Eurasian moose since the Late Pleistocene

• Published in: The Science of the total environment 2024-12, Vol.957, p.177235, Article 177235
• Main Authors: Niedziałkowska, Magdalena, Górny, Marcin, Gornia, Joanna, Popović, Danijela, Baca, Mateusz, Ratajczak-Skrzatek, Urszula, Kovalchuk, Oleksandr, Sykut, Maciej, Suska-Malawska, Małgorzata, Mackiewicz, Paweł, Hofman-Kamińska, Emilia, Kowalczyk, Rafał, Czarniauski, Maxim, Pawłowska, Kamilla, Makowiecki, Daniel, Tataurova, Larisa, Bondarev, Alexey, Shpansky, Andrey, Protopopov, Albert V., Sorokin, Aleksandr Dmitrievich, Saarma, Urmas, Kosintsev, Pavel, Schmölcke, Ulrich, Wilczyński, Jarosław, Lipecki, Grzegorz, Nadachowski, Adam, Boeskorov, Gennady G., Baryshnikov, Gennady F., Zorzin, Roberto, Vorobiova, Nadezhda, Moskvitina, Nina S., Leshchinskiy, Sergey, Malikov, Dmitriy, Berdnikov, Ivan M., Balasescu, Adrian, Boroneant, Adina, Klementiev, Alexey, Fyfe, Ralph, Woodbridge, Jessie, Stefaniak, Krzysztof
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Alces alces; Animal Distribution; Animals; Asia; Biogeography; Boreal species; Climate Change; climatic factors; cold; Deer - physiology; deforestation; Ecosystem; Environmental conditions; Eurasia; Europe; extinction; forests; habitats; Holocene; Holocene epoch; landscapes; Last Glacial Maximum refugia; Macroecology; Pleistocene epoch; primary productivity; species; Species distribution; summer; temperature
• ISSN: 0048-9697; 1879-1026; 1879-1026
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.177235

Climatic oscillations are considered primary factors influencing the distribution of various life forms on Earth. Large species adapted to cold climates are particularly vulnerable to extinction due to climate changes. In our study, we investigated whether temperature increase since the Late Pleistocene and the contraction of environmental niche during the Holocene were the main factors contributing to the decreasing range of moose (Alces alces) in Europe. We also examined whether there were significant differences in environmental conditions between areas inhabited by moose in Europe and Asia, that could support the division of moose into western and eastern forms, as suggested by genetic and morphological data. We analysed environmental conditions in the locations of 655 subfossil and modern moose occurrences over the past 50,000 years in Eurasia. We found that the most limiting climatic factor for the moose distribution since the Late Pleistocene was July temperature. More than 90 % of moose records were found in areas where mean summer temperature was below 19 °C, with July temperatures showing over 3 times narrower interquartile range compared to January temperatures. We identified significant differences in environmental conditions between areas inhabited by the European and Asiatic moose. In Europe, the species occurred in regions with milder climates, higher primary productivity, and more frequently within forest biomes compared to Asiatic individuals. The moose range shifted more in the west-east than in the south-north direction during the Holocene climate warming in Europe. We conclude that although the area of suitable moose habitat has increased since 12–8 ka years BP, as demonstrated by environmental niche modeling, the retreat of A. alces in large areas of Europe was likely caused by anthropogenic landscape change (e.g., deforestation) and overhunting by humans during the late Holocene rather than by climate warming during the Pleistocene to Holocene transition. [Display omitted] •Cold adapted species are vulnerable to extinction due to the climate warming.•We checked if the increase in temperature caused the range contraction of moose.•We analysed environmental conditions in subfossil and modern moose localities.•The most limiting climatic factor for the moose distribution was July temperature.•The retreat of moose in Europe was likely caused by anthropogenic factors.