Identifying climate refugia and corridors based on species niche models

In the last post, I described two approaches to climate change adaptation planning. The first approach is based on physical habitat (for example, soils and topography). The  second approach builds on the climatic niche models for individual species. A new paper by myself, Jeff Dunk, and Atte Moilanen applies this second approach to identify climate change refugia and corridors for old-growth-associated species in the Pacific Northwest. These are the “Survey and Manage” species identified under the Northwest Forest Plan, which was one of the first efforts to integrate conservation of wide-ranging focal species and localized endemics into regional conservation planning. We used the program Zonation, developed by Atte Moilanen, to identify a system of areas that captures habitat for both the Northern Spotted Owl and localized species, and prioritizes climate refugia where current and future habitat for dispersal-limited species is in proximity. Although some of the refugia identified, such as in the Klamath-Siskiyou and Olympic region, also have high levels of physical heterogeneity and would thus likely have been highlighted under an “enduring features” climate adaptation analysis, other areas owe their importance to the complex biogeographic history of the region that has helped create current patterns of species diversity.

Link to paper