Multi-scenario assessment of composite habitat suitability for endangered alpine species on the qinghai-tibet plateau under climate change

The Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, a globally critical climate-sensitive alpine region, is facing severe meadow degradation, habitat fragmentation and biodiversity loss driven by climate change and anthropogenic disturbances. Most existing assessments lack comprehensive ecological indicators for quantifying climate-driven habitat responses of endangered mammals, use fragmented methods that cannot capture cascading landscape processes, and over-rely on single-species models, which restricts integrated evaluation of multi-species habitat dynamics under future climate scenarios. To address these gaps, we established an integrated framework coupling land-use simulation, habitat suitability and landscape connectivity modeling. We quantified composite habitat suitability as a core indicator, together with Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis (MSPA)-derived ecological core area and ecological connectivity cost distance. Results show that warming does not necessarily cause a generalized decline in habitat for endangered alpine mammals. Instead, habitat outcomes emerge from non-linear interactions among warming intensity, precipitation regime shifts, topographic constraints, and scenario-specific land-use disturbance patterns. SSP2–4.5 yields the smallest and most fragmented ecological sources (55,653 km 2 ); warm-wet SSP5–8.5 creates continuous high-elevation habitats (137,261.08 km 2 ); SSP1–2.6 boosts core habitats by 258.8% to 210,554.08 km 2 . We identified six habitat response patterns for nine endangered mammals, validated the effectiveness of existing protected areas and detected dynamic conservation gaps. This study clarifies climate-driven habitat indicator responses and supports climate-adaptive conservation for endangered mammals on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau.