Climate Change Impacts on Species Distribution, Habitat Availability, and Conservation Priorities in Vulnerable Ecosystems

Abstract

Changes in the distribution of species due to climate change are causing habitat alteration, thus raising concerns about the future adequacy of current conservation infrastructure. This review focuses on the extent and nature of climate-induced range shifts, extinction risks implied by those, and the need to reconsider priorities for conservation due to the changes. A global meta-analysis revealed that species ranges had moved to areas of higher elevation at the rate of 11.0 meters per decade and towards higher latitude areas at 16.9 kilometres per decade, which is almost two to three times faster compared to previous findings, despite large interspecific variations. The projected range losses leading to extinction risks of species under mid-range warming scenarios suggested that up to 15-37% of species within sampled regions would be committed to extinction by 2050. Within topographically complex mountain systems, a combined effect of elevation range shifts and human land use creates uneven impacts, when species from lower elevations find less anthropogenically disturbed areas as they migrate uphill, while high elevation species are affected both by land use and elevational restrictions. Neither the current protected area networks nor their design principles take into account the dynamics in question. A modeling effort predicting continental-scale networks of reserves estimated high species turnover by the end of the century at many locations, leaving open the possibility that current reserve borders may no longer be effective in protecting the species for which they have been created. Overall syntheses support the view that the amount of predicted loss of biological diversity depends on the method, the group, and the geographical location used, but consistently suggests that extinction rates will lead to significantly accelerated species losses worldwide. Taken together, these facts suggest that the priority should shift from static to dynamic and topology-aware conservation efforts.