Figure 1 Historical summer (breeding and molting) range of the eastern sub-population of Lesser White-fronted Goose. Black contours indicate known breeding or molting enclaves. A) from Morozov 1995; B) from Morozov and Syroechkovski-Jr 2002; and C) from Cao et al . 2018.
As new tracking technologies have developed, the investigation and quantification of spatial and temporal distributions of wide-ranged migratory species, such as A. erythropus , now typically involve the deployment of telemetric tracking devices (Jiguet et al . 2011; Pimm et al. 2015). Rapid accumulation of tracking data offers new insights to assess distribution ranges and to explore habitat preferences (Kays et al . 2015). For example, tracking data can be linked with environmental conditions and used in ecological niche models to predict the overall space use by a population (Jiguet et al . 2011). In this context, this paper aimed to quantify to the potential summering range of the East Asian A. erythropus sub-population by combining GPS tracking data, historical ground survey records, and literature sources. Using bioclimatic, geomorphological, land cover, and human disturbance layers, we used Maxent (a niche modelling technique, Elith et al. 2006), to predict the summering habitats of A. erythropus within East Siberia in an ensemble forecast framework, i.e. averaging predictions from many models (100 in this study) to account for data uncertainties and model variability (Pearson et al. 2006). Niche models using both historical records and recent tracking data could help to get better understanding of the summering distribution of the East Asian A. erythropus sub-population, and provide more accurate information for conservation plans including identifying potential threats and prioritizing management actions.