Fine-grain modeling of species’ response to climate change: holdouts, stepping-stones, and microrefugia

Lee, Hannah; Flint, Lorraine E.; Syphard, Alexandra D.; Moritz, Max A.; Buckley, Lauren B.; McCullough, Ian M.

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2014.04.006

Cited by 290 publications

(357 citation statements)

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“…Topoclimate diversity is a highly overlooked landscape feature in climate change related analyses (Luoto and Heikkinen 2008, Randin et al 2009, Logan et al 2013, despite its great promise to help moderate the effects of climate change (Anderson and Ferree 2010, Beier and Brost 2010, Groves et al 2012. The most cited benefit of topoclimate diversity is the potential for climates where species can persist throughout climate change (Hannah et al 2014). The presence of topoclimate refugia may be especially important to mid-to high-elevation species that are at a high risk of upward displacement (Rull 2009).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate‐smart management of biodiversity

2015

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Abstract. Determining where biodiversity is likely to be most vulnerable to climate change and methods to reduce that vulnerability are necessary first steps to incorporate climate change into biodiversity management plans. Here, we use a spatial climate change vulnerability assessment to (1) map the potential vulnerability of terrestrial biodiversity to climate change in the northeastern United States and (2) provide guidance on how and where management actions for biodiversity could provide long-term benefits under climate change (i.e., climate-smart management considerations). Our model suggests that biodiversity will be most vulnerable in Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia due to the combination of high climate change velocity, high landscape resistance, and high topoclimate homogeneity. Biodiversity is predicted to be least vulnerable in Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire because large portions of these states have low landscape resistance, low climate change velocity, and low topoclimate homogeneity. Our spatial climate-smart management considerations suggest that: (1) high topoclimate diversity could moderate the effects of climate change across 50% of the region; (2) decreasing local landscape resistance in conjunction with other management actions could increase the benefit of those actions across 17% of the region; and (3) management actions across 24% of the region could provide long-term benefits by promoting short-term population persistence that provides a source population capable of moving in the future. The guidance and framework we provide here should allow conservation organizations to incorporate our climate-smart management considerations into management plans without drastically changing their approach to biodiversity conservation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate‐smart management of biodiversity

2015

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“…The populational or spatio-habitat nature of refugial phenomena Hannah et al (2014) introduce interesting terms for small range elements, such as 'holdouts', 'microrefugia' and 'stepping-stones' in a population-centered meaning (Table 1). The authors introduce these notions to describe their different function during species range dynamics.…”

Section: The Road To Microrefugia: Linking Ecology and Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rull 2009;Ashcroft 2010;Gavin et al 2014;Birks 2015 and others), the usage of 'micro-refugium' as a population-centered term could be misleading. Hannah et al (2014) use these terms with regard to species distribution modelling. However, even if species-specific ecological and biological predictors are used (Cassini 2011; Kiedrzyński et al 2017), modeling only defines the areas with a high probability of population occurrence, not the occurrence of the populations themselves.…”

Section: The Road To Microrefugia: Linking Ecology and Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mee and Moore (2014) postulate that the processes surrounding the appearance and persistence of refugial populations should be analysed from both ecological and evolutionary perspectives. Some solutions have been presented recently in inspiring papers by Hannah et al (2014), and ; however, these papers differ with regard to their interpretation of the described phenomena. Moreover, the relationship between the processes occurring during extinction and refugial phases of the species range dynamics, is not clearly visible.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Refugial debate: on small sites according to their function and capacity

et al. 2017

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The occurrence and location of long-term refugia determine the current patterns of biodiversity on Earth. The importance of the refugial debate is certain to increase in response to observed and expected species extinctions caused by climate change. Small areas where species survive outside their core range are important, as unique natural phenomena and model systems for observing the response of species to climate change. They can play a crucial role as potential sources for species recovery in the future or can act as progenitors of a new species. While most authors believe that sites connected with only long-term isolation should be included into the refugium concept, this approach can result in the loss of linkage between the ecological and evolutionary processes taking place during different phases of the species range dynamics. Moreover, the papers often interpret the nature of described phenomena in different ways. In response, the conceptual scheme given in our letter summarises the patterns which occur during species range shift. It proposes an equivalent scheme for small refugial sites according to their function and capacity, based on the relict species concept. This approach and proposed terminology is tested on the example of two plant species with different pattern of the long term range dynamics. Our paper highlights the importance of sites harboring 'trailing-edge' young relicts for the future long-term persistence of the species (as old relicts) under unfavorable regional conditions. By considering the age gradients of small refugial sites it is possible to reveal community interactions, species traits or genes that drive the responses of biota to climate changes.

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“…However, while arid-zone refugia provide stable habitat during contemporary climate fluctuations, climate change microrefugia are expected to maintain relictual habitat within larger regions that climate change has rendered unsuitable (Dobrowski, 2011;Keppel et al, 2012;Reside et al, 2014). Such microrefugia may be most valuable as stepping stones facilitating species range shifts, even if they do not provide permanent suitable habitat (Hannah et al, 2014). Modeling studies have found that the availability of microrefugia can substantially reduce predictions of extinction risk due to contemporary climate fluctuations (Céré et al, 2015) and historical (Patsiou et al, 2014) and anthropogenic (Lenoir et al, 2017;Meineri and Hylander, 2017;Randin et al, 2009;Slavich et al, 2014) climate change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting microrefugia in semi-arid landscapes from remotely sensed vegetation dynamics

Andrew

Warrener

2017

Remote Sensing of Environment

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(in press). Detecting microrefugia in semi-arid landscapes from remotely sensed vegetation dynamics. Remote Sensing of Environment. Accepted 4 August 2017. DOI:https: //doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2017.08.005 Disclaimer:The PDF document is a copy of the final version of this manuscript that was subsequently accepted by the journal for publication. The paper has been through peer review, but it has not been subject to any additional copy-editing or journal specific formatting (so will look different from the final version of record, which may be accessed following the DOI above depending on your access situation). 2 AbstractMicrorefugia are sites with stable, high quality habitat within landscapes characterized by dynamic environmental conditions driven by climate variability or ecological disturbances. There is considerable interest in the potential of microrefugia to provide climate change resilience to landscapes and to biodiversity conservation. Although attractive conceptually, there is yet little guidance on how to identify climate change microrefugia in order to study and protect them, and the data required to do so are often lacking. This study demonstrates how time series remote sensing, using all available Landsat images of a study area, can be used to directly detect microrefugia maintained by water subsidies in a semi-arid landscape in southwest Western Australia.Microrefugia were identified as pixels with abundant vegetation and consistent vegetation dynamics between wet and dry years. At every pixel, a harmonic model was fit to the intra-annual time series of vegetation index values compiled from the wettest years in the Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper (TM) archive. This model was then used to predict the phenological cycle of the driest years at that pixel. Candidate microrefugia were defined to be those pixels with (1) high vegetation activity in dry years and (2) highly predictable phenologies that are consistent regardless of the weather conditions experienced in a given year. Spatial relationships between candidate microrefugia and landscape features associated with elevated moisture availability (thought to drive climate microrefugia in these semi-arid landscapes) were assessed. The candidate microrefugia show great promise. Evaluations against high-resolution imagery reveal that candidate microrefugia most likely buffer against drought, although refugia from other disturbances, especially fire, were also detected. In contrast, spatial proxies of the physical features expected to maintain microrefugia failed to adequately represent the distribution of microrefugia across the landscape, likely due to data quality and the heterogeneity of microrefugia. Direct detection of microrefugia with Earth observation data is a promising solution in data limited regions. Landsat time series analyses are well suited to this application as they can characterize both the habitat quality and stability aspects of microrefugia.

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Fine-grain modeling of species’ response to climate change: holdouts, stepping-stones, and microrefugia

Cited by 290 publications

References 54 publications

Climate‐smart management of biodiversity

Climate‐smart management of biodiversity

Refugial debate: on small sites according to their function and capacity

Detecting microrefugia in semi-arid landscapes from remotely sensed vegetation dynamics

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