Ecological corridors are one of the main tools that can help species adapt to climate change. Shifting landscapes lead to shifting ranges, and individuals need linkages that allow them to move freely between habitats. If they aren’t created with climate change in mind, corridors that are critical in today’s environment may become rarely or never used in the future.
The idea of planning for climate-wise connectivity is still relatively new. Connectivity modeling for climate adaptation requires both identifying critical linkages and understanding how future climate scenarios will shift habitats and create new linkages. There are now multiple approaches available for modeling climate-wise connectivity, but rarely do these approaches all lead to one single connectivity map for a region.
Choe, H., Keeley, A.T., Cameron, D.R., Gogol-Prokurat, M., Hannah, L., Roehrdanz, P.R., Schloss, C.A. and Thorne, J.H. 2021. The influence of model frameworks in spatial planning of regional climate-adaptive connectivity for conservation planning. Landscape and Urban Planning 214: 104169.
A recent example from the the Sierra Nevada ecoregion of California illustrates this complexity. A comparison of 4 different connectivity models developed for conservation and climate adaptation (Land Facet Corridors, Omniscape, Meta-Corridor Analysis, and Network Flow Analysis) reveals very little overlap between output maps in identifying key connections, even with a large percentage of the landscape being prioritized by at least one approach. The highest agreement among all approaches was only for ~10% of the area, all of which was riparian. To better untangle these different approaches, included with the modeling results are extensive summaries on how each approach works, along with explanations of the benefits and caveats for each. They provide an useful starting place for anyone thinking about the details of modeling connectivity under a changing climate.
So then what is the best approach to model climate-wise connectivity? There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Like with any planning, it helps to start with clear objectives. These include having explicitly stated conservation goals, communicating with stakeholders beforehand, identifying focal species and data sources, and acknowledging budgetary, time and resource constraints. Generating appropriate connectivity models for climate adaptation is a key step, but only one of many toward creating realistic and successful corridors in the landscape.
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