Meta‐corridor solutions for climate‐vulnerable plant species groups in South Korea

Abstract

1.Vulnerability assessments can provide useful information for the establishment of climate change adaptation strategies. We performed spatial vulnerability assessments for multiple plant species that incorporate potential range shifts to areas of future suitable climate. We conducted the assessments at a national level for plant species organized into vulnerable species groups. We then identified a climate meta-corridor for each vulnerable group that could potentially be a pathway for multiple species. 2. We estimated climate suitability for 2297 South Korean terrestrial plant species under current climate conditions and climate projections for 2050 using the Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines multiresponse species distribution model. We classified the plants into five groups based on their current spatial distribution patterns: centrally located species, widerange species, coastal mountain species, montane species, and lowland species. Three vulnerability assessment componentsexposure, spatial disruption, and dispersal pressurewere used to calculate the spatial vulnerability of each species. Vulnerability values were averaged by group. We identified climate meta-corridors that would link current suitable areas to future climatically suitable areas, and tested the corridors for multi-species accessibility. 3. The vulnerability assessment indicates that coastal mountain, montane, and lowland species groups, comprising 37% of all modelled species, are the most vulnerable to climate change. The climate meta-corridor for each group overlaps at least some portion of 83% or more of its species' current modelled ranges. The current and future climate-suitable areas for the lowland species group have very little spatial overlap, suggesting a high priority should be placed on the corridor identified for these species. We found that the destinations of the climate corridors converge, raising questions about large numbers of species moving to limited areas, and that transboundary corridor modelling is needed on the Korean Peninsula. 4. Policy implications. Each of the three meta-corridors has unique policy implications: assisted migration for the highest elevation species for the montane; significant conservation and restoration work for the lowland; and perhaps no direct intervention but monitoring to evaluate effectiveness of the relatively intact habitats of the coastal mountain meta-corridor. Overall, implementation policies for climate connectivity will be context-dependent, requiring different approaches dependent on local and regional conditions and the species targeted.

Integrating Climate Change and Land Use Impacts to Explore Forest Conservation Policy

“…We previously used the MARS multiresponse species distribution model (SDMs) to estimate the current and the future distributions of 2,297 terrestrial plant species [27,28], of which we identified 1,031 species as CVS (Table S1) [27]. For those studies we used 65,491 species occurrence records from the South Korean second and third national ecosystem survey data (available from the ECObank: http://ecobank.nie.re.kr).…”

“…The MARS model was appropriate for our use because our data include large numbers of species with few records. Detailed modeling process can be found in [27,28].…”

“…For future species' range projections, we used variables derived from the HadGEM2-ES (HE; + 2.7 °C and + 203.9 mm in precipitation (RCP 4.5), + 3.4 °C and + 262.3 mm (RCP 8.5) from the current 5.9 °C and 1320.1 mm in South Korea on average) and the NorESM1-M (NO; + 1.9 °C and -18.9 mm in precipitation (RCP 4.5), + 2.5 °C and + 79.3 mm (RCP 8.5)) global climate models (GCMs) under the emission scenarios for Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 and RCP 8.5 [31], because these two GCMs provide contrasting future climates of South Korea [28]. HE projection represents a hotter and wetter future climate and NO projection represents a warmer and drier future climate in South Korea (Figure 3).…”

“…All species were grouped based on their current spatial distribution patterns, and spatial vulnerability components -exposure, spatial disruption, and dispersal pressure -were used to define climatically vulnerable species groups, CVS. Vulnerability values were averaged by group and then defined species groups as vulnerable by comparing their vulnerability scores with the average score for all species [27,28]. We used 1,031 CVS plant species' projected range maps for the current climate and for each of the four future climate projections, and analyzed the shifts in their distribution patterns.…”

Integrating climate change and land use impacts to explore forest conservation policy

“…We used previously developed outputs from the MARS multiresponse species distribution models (SDMs) to estimate the current and the future distributions of 2,297 terrestrial plant species [19,20], of which 1,031 species have been identified as CVS (Table S1) [19]. In this study we used the species' range projections derived from the HadGEM2-ES (HE) and the NorESM1-M (NO) global climate models (GCMs) under the emission scenarios for Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 and RCP 8.5 [21].…”