over 13 centuries, a research team led by new UC San Diego faculty member Shermin de Silva found that habitats suitable for Asian elephants have been cut by nearly two-thirds within the past 300 years.
The study also suggests that the remaining elephant populations today may not have adequate habitat areas. While 100% of the area within 100 kilometers of the current elephant range was considered suitable habitat in 1700, the proportion has since declined to less than 50% by 2015. This sets up a high potential for conflicts with people living in those areas as elephant populations alter their behavior and adjust to more human-dominated spaces.
Also contributing to the study were researchers from across the globe, including Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, University of Nottingham Malaysia, Frankfurt Zoological Society, Vietnam National University of Forestry, Wild Earth Allies, Zoological Society of London and Colby College.
The global space available for Asian elephant habitats has been in rapid decline since the 1700s. Credit: Report coauthors Human impacts leading to reductions in the habitat ranges of several land-based mammal species have been well documented in the recent past. Climate change is also thought to have accelerated this decline over the past century. But assessing the impact of such changes on wildlife over the long-term has been difficult to study due to the lack of historical records.
"We used present-day locations where we know there are elephants, together with the corresponding environmental features based on the LUH data sets, to infer where similar habitats existed in the past," said de Silva."In order for us to build a more just and sustainable society, we have to understand the history of how we got here. This study is one step toward that understanding.