Species are expected to shift their ranges in response to climate change. One strategy toward supporting climate vulnerable species is to preserve climate refugia – areas that are unlikely to change much under future climate conditions and where species can persist without frequent dispersal.
However, human development has changed land- and seascapes to the degree that many climate refugia have been lost or become completely homogenous, leaving climate-vulnerable species in trouble. Restoring climate refugia to former conditions could help create more of these buffered environments, but it’s difficult to know the extent that restoring areas to past levels of heterogeneity might be beneficial.
Backus, G.A., Clements, C.F. and Baskett, M.L. 2024. Restoring spatiotemporal variability to enhance the capacity for dispersal‐limited species to track climate change. Ecology 105(4): e4257.
What type of management actions might be most helpful in creating or improving climate refugia? Simulations from a recent broad-scale theoretical model aim to quantify the potential conservation benefits of various management techniques in two ways.
First, the model looks at changes in spatial heterogeneity to determine whether increased variability is beneficial by providing a wider range of environmental conditions. Second, it looks at environmental stochasticity to determine whether decreased variability is beneficial by creating more stable environmental conditions over time. By representing these two types of management actions – increasing heterogeneity and decreasing stochasticity – the model is better able to quantify the effect on species persistence and population size under climate change.
The results quantify the extent to which increasing spatial heterogeneity and decreasing temporal variability for climate refugia benefit a wide range of species. Without any management efforts, over 75% of species persisted, but the average population size decreased to less than 30% of its original size under a 100 year, 4°C increase scenario.
In contrast, increasing spatial heterogeneity resulted in more species with higher population sizes remaining and higher rates of persistence over time. This effect was most pronounced under more extreme climate change (4°C increase compared to 2°C). Increased heterogeneity was most beneficial for species with short dispersal distances, and beneficial but less important for species with longer dispersal, narrow thermal tolerance, or low fecundity. This is likely because environments with high heterogeneity allow more species to stay put or disperse shorter distances in order to track climate change and reach analogous climates.
Decreasing temporal variability also benefited species population size and persistence, particularly for species with longer dispersal, narrower thermal tolerance, and lower fecundity. While these species are more likely to persist through climate change even without the restoration of climate refugia, management efforts to stabilize year-to-year variation still have the potential to positively impact climate vulnerable species.
Restoring climate refugia can take many forms, such as protecting forested patches in agricultural landscapes, using wildlife-friendly farming practices, or preserving mixed canopy cover to help buffer interannual variation. Maintaining climate corridors that link refugia can help ensure that species are able to disperse effectively when they need to. Creating environments that buffer against shifting environmental conditions and support dispersal for a wide range of species can help mitigate the most detrimental effects of climate change into the future.
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