High elevation mountain tops may act as climate refugia in the future, but individuals must have suitable corridors to reach them from present day ranges.
Climate corridors that create links between climate refugia are a key strategy in maintaining connectivity in the future. However, understanding how to design and implement relevant climate strategies is not always straightforward. Several new publications highlight recent advances in identifying and managing climate resilient methods.
The June issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment focuses on climate-change refugia, with open-access research such as:
- suggestions for identifying climate refugia based on a combination of physical attributes in the landscape and species-specific characteristics;
- tools and principles to address climate refugia management for freshwater fish populations;
- a synthesis of validation methods for independently testing predicted climate refugia;
- a framework for determining whether natural springs in water-limited landscapes will be effective hydrologic refugia.
In addition, a new review in Conservation Biology emphasizes the expansion of protected areas networks as essential to protect climate refugia, corridors, and ecosystems overall. Using the Yellowstone-to-Yukon region as an example, it shows how practitioners can use conceptual rules based on broad‐scale spatial patterns and drivers of threat to prioritize conservation measures under future climates.
Finally, a new app from Carlos Carroll (Klamath Center for Conservation Research) and Justin Beckers (Canadian Forestry Service/NRCAN) called Climate Resilience Data Explorer helps agencies, First Nations, and NGOs access information on climate resilience. It allows users to view, summarize, and generate reports regarding 10 key metrics related to climate resilience, including climate connectivity.
The web application consists of two type of modules. The two explorers allow viewing of data and generation of reports summarizing metrics for North America’s watersheds and management areas, respectively. The tours, located below the explorers on the app’s home page, provide tutorials on how the metrics are generated and how they can be interpreted. Background information and access to the app are free and available through AdaptWest.
Resources
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment Special Issue: Climate-change Refugia
Carroll, C. and Noss, R.F. 2020. Rewilding in the face of climate change. Conservation Biology. DOI: 10.1111/cobi.13531.
