Abstract

Grey Crowned-cranes occur throughout the mixed wetland-grassland habitats of Eastern and Southern Africa. Due primarily to loss of habitat, however, the species is in swift decline over much of its historic range. We present a prediction of habitat suitability throughout Uganda using a Maxent modeling approach, combining presence-only field data collected over the last few decades (1970 - 2006) with remote sensing and climate derived variables. We ran six feature type models, with the Auto feature type model having the best fit to the data (AUC = 0.912). Our results provide detailed information regarding the characteristics of habitats used and highlight specific areas of high habitat suitability for the species. While wetlands were certainly important in the prediction (9.2% contribution), other variables (namely temperature seasonality) were more important within the model (19.5%). Areas of high habitat suitability (defined as > 0.6 probability of presence) accounted for only a small amount of the total area throughout the country (5.8 - 6.9%), and were mainly found in the Southwestern corner of the country and along the Albert Nile River. These data provide a statistical basis for extrapolating into areas that have not been surveyed and provide valuable information for the future conservation of the species.

Key words: Balearica regulorum gibbericeps, East Africa, Grey Crowned-crane, habitat suitability, maxent, modeling, Uganda.