Abstract
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a biogeography textbook example for species distributions, ecology, evolution and human co-evolution. It is located in the tropical region near the equator and driven by the Wallace Line and the Weber Line; neither mammals nor birds or many fish species have really crossed them. Primates as well as squirrels are curiously absent in PNG, despite PNG featuring one of the largest virgin forest covers and biodiversity. Squirrels occur almost all over the world but not in PNG. Here we infer from a global predictive open-access species distribution model (SDM) for squirrel species of the world for PNG the occurrence of potential but unconfirmed seven Southeast Asian squirrel species. We then overlaid this predicted ecological niche map with a proxy-squirrel species from nearby Australia, the sugar glider (Petaurus breviceps) to better understand why and where this predicted ecological niche is vacant. In the absence of an archeological record for squirrels in PNG, this research remains inconclusive whether squirrels have occurred in PNG and how climate and/or humans have affected them. Model-predicting absence in SDM is an important but widely overlooked subject for better inference. While more research is needed here we provided progress through a first analysis and make all data publically available for further inquiry.
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Appendix
Appendix
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Appendix 28.1: Species SDM data for seven species—including the additive model, as TIFF rasters.
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Appendix 28.2: Environmental Predictors (rasters, available from Steiner and Huettmann in prep).
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Huettmann, F., Steiner, M. (2023). Why Are There no Squirrels in Papua New Guinea? Insights from Predictive Models for a Vacant Ecological Niche of Global Relevance. In: Globalization and Papua New Guinea: Ancient Wilderness, Paradise, Introduced Terror and Hell. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20262-9_28
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20262-9_28
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