Environmental niche modeling of the Nanling Range
ENM of the habitats of the 5 target species during the LGM (21,000 years
ago) and the onset of the BAW (14,600 ybp) indicates that the range of
all of them would have shifted largely to the eastern end of the Nanling
Mountains, while a few discrete probability peaks remained within the
rest of the range. During this time, the Nanling Mountains formed
the approximate northern edge of warm forest vegetation in China (figure
4 in Tian et al. 2018a). As expected with global warming after
~14,600 years ago and a
concomitant increase in suitable
habitat, the species expanded their distributions westward across the
mountains (Supporting information). The key conclusion of ENM is that
the Nanling Mountains provided refugial habitat to sustain the 5 species
during the LGM. No doubt, conditions in the mountains sustained many
other bird species as well.