The capacity of refugia for conservation planning under climate change

Refugia – areas that may facilitate the persistence of species during large-scale, long-term climatic change – are increasingly important for conservation planning. There are many methods for identifying refugia, but the ability to quantify their potential for facilitating species persistence (ie th...

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Main Authors: Keppel, Gunnar, Monkany, K., Wardell-Johnson, Grant, Phillips, B., Welbergen, J., Reside, A.
Format: Journal Article
Published: The Ecological Society of America 2015
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/29924
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author Keppel, Gunnar
Monkany, K.
Wardell-Johnson, Grant
Phillips, B.
Welbergen, J.
Reside, A.
author_facet Keppel, Gunnar
Monkany, K.
Wardell-Johnson, Grant
Phillips, B.
Welbergen, J.
Reside, A.
author_sort Keppel, Gunnar
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Refugia – areas that may facilitate the persistence of species during large-scale, long-term climatic change – are increasingly important for conservation planning. There are many methods for identifying refugia, but the ability to quantify their potential for facilitating species persistence (ie their “capacity”) remains elusive. We propose a flexible framework for prioritizing future refugia, based on their capacity. This framework can be applied through various modeling approaches and consists of three steps: (1) definition of scope, scale, and resolution; (2) identification and quantification; and (3) prioritization for conservation. Capacity is quantified by multiple indicators, including environmental stability, microclimatic heterogeneity, size, and accessibility of the refugium. Using an integrated, semi-mechanistic modeling technique, we illustrate how this approach can be implemented to identify refugia for the plant diversity of Tasmania, Australia. The highest- capacity climate-change refugia were found primarily in cool, wet, and topographically complex environments, several of which we identify as high priorities for biodiversity conservation and management.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-299242017-09-13T15:52:27Z The capacity of refugia for conservation planning under climate change Keppel, Gunnar Monkany, K. Wardell-Johnson, Grant Phillips, B. Welbergen, J. Reside, A. Refugia – areas that may facilitate the persistence of species during large-scale, long-term climatic change – are increasingly important for conservation planning. There are many methods for identifying refugia, but the ability to quantify their potential for facilitating species persistence (ie their “capacity”) remains elusive. We propose a flexible framework for prioritizing future refugia, based on their capacity. This framework can be applied through various modeling approaches and consists of three steps: (1) definition of scope, scale, and resolution; (2) identification and quantification; and (3) prioritization for conservation. Capacity is quantified by multiple indicators, including environmental stability, microclimatic heterogeneity, size, and accessibility of the refugium. Using an integrated, semi-mechanistic modeling technique, we illustrate how this approach can be implemented to identify refugia for the plant diversity of Tasmania, Australia. The highest- capacity climate-change refugia were found primarily in cool, wet, and topographically complex environments, several of which we identify as high priorities for biodiversity conservation and management. 2015 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/29924 10.1890/140055 The Ecological Society of America fulltext
spellingShingle Keppel, Gunnar
Monkany, K.
Wardell-Johnson, Grant
Phillips, B.
Welbergen, J.
Reside, A.
The capacity of refugia for conservation planning under climate change
title The capacity of refugia for conservation planning under climate change
title_full The capacity of refugia for conservation planning under climate change
title_fullStr The capacity of refugia for conservation planning under climate change
title_full_unstemmed The capacity of refugia for conservation planning under climate change
title_short The capacity of refugia for conservation planning under climate change
title_sort capacity of refugia for conservation planning under climate change
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/29924