Data from: Long-term human land-use change throughout Southeast Asia reshapes the distribution of suitable habitat for a human-commensal bird species
Data files
Mar 27, 2025 version files 97.14 KB
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pswallow_idw_778.csv
20.92 KB
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pswallow_rs_2390.csv
44.93 KB
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pswallow_zf_1312.csv
28.95 KB
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README.md
2.34 KB
Abstract
Aim: Human activity has reshaped ecological communities for thousands of years. While these activities have typically led to habitat loss, some species have successfully exploited human environments. However, the effects of long-term human land-use on the distributions of such species are poorly understood. Here, we investigated how land-use change over the last 12,000 years has altered the distribution of suitable habitat for a widespread human-commensal bird species, the Pacific swallow (Hirundo tahitica).
Location: Southeast Asia, Melanesia
Methods: We built species distribution models using community science records and evaluated approaches to controlling for spatial biases that arise from using unstructured survey data to model species associated with anthropogenic environments. We then assessed the distribution of suitable habitat for Pacific swallows under three alternative scenarios of land-use change that incorporated only climate variables, only human land-use variables, and both variable sets. Lastly, we hindcasted alternative models at 1,000-year intervals over the last 12,000 years to evaluate how habitat availability has changed due to long-term human activity.
Results: Models that included climate and human land-use variables were the best fit to occurrence records. Standard methods for controlling for spatial bias performed poorly compared to fully sampling the environmental background, highlighting unique considerations for modeling human-associated species. Hindcasting alternative land-use scenarios showed that suitable human-altered habitat arose within the Pacific swallow range at least 4000 years ago and caused significant expansions of suitable habitat over the last 2000 years.
Main conclusions: Human land-use over the last several thousand years has likely provided Pacific swallows with substantial new habitat, which may have led to population size expansions. Incorporating long-term human land-use into species distribution models offers insights into when associations with human environments may have arisen and generates testable predictions for how populations respond and adapt to human land-use change over millennial timescales.
Brenda Ramirez, ramirezb@oxy.edu, Moore Laboratory of Zoology, Occidental College
The presence/background datasets for each of the pseudo-absence methods used are included in this repository. Background points were generated using inverse distance weighting, random sampling, and zero-filling using the same filtered presence points. Environmental conditions were used to assess the distribution of suitable habitat, with the present-day conditions included as well.
Description of the data and file structure
- “pswallow_idw_778.csv” contains Pacific swallow presences with 778 background points created using inverse distance weighting.
- “pswallow_rs_2390.csv” contains Pacific swallow presences with 2390 background points created using random sampling.
- “pswallow_zf_1312.csv” contains Pacific swallow presences with 1312 background points created using zero-filling.
The presence/background files include a column for longitude, latitude, and occurrence.
Sharing/Access information
Environmental layers included in our study include: 17 bioclimatic variables from Bioclim, elevation from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, HYDE 3.2.1 human land-use dataset, and lithology. These environmental layers are accessible from external sources at the websites below:
- Bioclim (with data from the last 12,000 years): https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/LateQuaternary_Environment_nc/12293345
- HYDE 3.2.1 (with data from the last 12,000 years): https://archaeology.datastations.nl/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.17026/dans-25g-gez3
- Global lithological map (GLiM) dataset: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.788537
- Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (STRM) elevation dataset: https://portal.opentopography.org/datasetMetadata?otCollectionID=OT.042013.4326.1
Code/Software
All data were processed using R 4.2.1.