Predicting the potential habitat suitability of mangrove bioindicator species- Telescopium telescopium (Linnaeus, 1758) through MaxEnt modelling

Abstract

Mangrove ecosystems are blessed with molluscs that are a key component as bioindicator species and measure the environment's health. The most prevalent and most sensitive bioindicator species in mangroves worldwide is Telescopium telescopium. Habitat loss is the evitable cause of species extinction, however, the species distribution and loss (here, T. telescopium) due to climate change factors throughout the globe is still not clear. The maximum entropy species distribution model (MaxEnt) was used to investigate the present habitat suitability distribution of T. telescopium population. Based on the results, T. telescopium showed high potential distribution in South-East Asia which is dominated by mangrove regions. The MaxEnt model showed an AUC (area under the curve, "Sensitivity vs. Specificity") value of 0.962, indicating its high accuracy. The Jackknife test revealed the temperature as the primary environmental factor influencing T. telescopium distribution in mangrove sediments (Regularised raining Gain=1.43). The distribution of T. telescopium was positively correlated with the distribution of mangroves worldwide (R²=62.49 %) using GIS-based regression analysis. A global circulation model was conducted using the temperature data from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project-6 for the year 2100. The results showed that the population of T. telescopium was expected to decline steadily and shortly with the temperature rise. Here, the research showed that temperature, elevation, and rainfall were also responsible variables that influenced the distribution and loss of T. telescopium globally besides mangrove or habitat loss.