MODELING THE IMPACTS OF LAND COVER AND CLIMATE CHANGES ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF AFROMONTANE BIRD SPECIES OF CONCERN IN MALAWI

Land cover and climate changes remain the greatest challenges to the conservation of montane birds; consequently, understanding the effects of these threats can inform conservation efforts. Conservation of birds demands data, not only for the present status but also for projections of future status and vulnerability. This study investigated the impacts of land cover and climate changes on the distribution of bird species of concern in Malawi. The CA-MC model was used to predict future land-cover changes and the MaxEnt model was used to predict the distribution of Yellow-throated Apalis (Apalis flavigularis), White-winged Apalis (Apalis chariessa) and Thyolo Alethe (Pseudalethe choloensis) under different climate scenarios. The results revealed that land cover changed greatly from 1995 to 2015; where forests reduced by over 50% and future projections (2025, 2035 and 2045) showed that forests will continue to decline. The study birds experienced huge geographic range losses ranging from 49.05% to 94.66% under future climate scenarios. However, when MaxEnt models were projected to the whole country some climatically suitable areas outside the known geographic ranges of the target birds were found. These results suggest that the birds (A. flavigularis, A. chariessa, and P. choloensis) are under great threat of extinction from land cover and climate changes. Therefore increased forest protection to prevent further forest cover losses will be key to the conservation of these birds. Another attempt to rescuing the birds in the short term would be to introduce them to areas outside their known geographic ranges that were identified as climatically suitable especially in Nyika National park. However, this will require exploration of other habitat requirements for these species as habitat suitability is not only determined by climate and land cover