The effect of climatic variability on the invasive species: a study from south Sikkim
Student name: Ms Sucheta Deb
Guide: Dr Kamna Sachdeva
Year of completion: 2017
Host Organisation: IORA Ecological Solutions, New Delhi
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Dr Saurindra Goswami
Abstract: Invasive species are a huge threat to the native biodiversity of India. Due to climate change,
invasive species are easily taking over. Increase in temperature, decrease in rainfall, melting of
glaciers, forest fires etc all causes damage to the local biodiversity and therefore, invasive
species can easily take over.
This study focuses on the impact of climate change on the growth and distribution of the invasive
species found in South district of Sikkim. Sikkim is a home of a wide variety of flora and fauna.
Due to climate variability, there is a widespread effect on the local biodiversity and population
of invasive species is found to have increased profoundly over the years. Maxent distribution
modeling has been used to study the pattern of distribution of these invasive species.
Key words: invasive species, climate change, Maxent modeling, Climate scenarios, Life forms
