Identifying species traits that predict vulnerability to climate change

Abstract

Accurately predicting the vulnerabilities of species to climate change requires a more detailed understanding of the functional and life-history traits that make some species more susceptible to declines and extinctions in shifting climates. This is because existing trait-based correlates of extinction risk from climate and environmental disturbances vary widely, often being idiosyncratic and context dependent. A powerful solution is to analyse the growing volume of biological data on changes in species ranges and abundances using process-explicit ecological models that run at fine temporal and spatial scales and across large geographical extents. These simulation-based approaches can unpack complex interactions between species’ traits and climate and other threats. This enables species-responses to climatic change to be contextualised and integrated into future biodiversity projections and to be used to formulate and assess conservation policy goals. By providing a more complete understanding of the traits and contexts that regulate different responses of species to climate change, these process-driven approaches are likely to result in more certain predictions of the species that are most vulnerable to climate change.

Keywords

• biodiversity conservation
• extinction risk
• process-based model
• range shift
• resurvey data