Land-use change interacts with climate to determine elevational species redistribution

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Climate Change Biology
• Conservation Biology

Background:

• Global climate change is altering species distributions, impacting ecosystems and human societies.
• Species movement is influenced by climate, but interactions with habitat availability and land-use change are not fully understood.
• Elevational range shifts are a key indicator of species' responses to climate change.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the confounding effects of land-use change on climate-driven species redistribution.
• To assess how forest cover and forest cover change influence the magnitude of elevational range shifts.
• To understand the synergistic impacts of climate and habitat loss on species movement.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of published data on 2798 elevational range shifts from 43 study sites.
• Statistical modeling to identify predictors of range shift magnitude.
• Examination of interactions between climate variables and land-use change metrics (forest cover).

Main Results:

• Baseline forest cover and recent forest cover change significantly predict elevational range shifts.
• Forest loss interacts positively with baseline temperature, accelerating upslope movement in warmer regions.
• Synergistic effects of climate and habitat loss are critical for forecasting species redistribution.

Conclusions:

• Both climate change and habitat loss are critical drivers of species redistribution.
• The interaction between forest loss and warming temperatures accelerates species' upslope movement, particularly in the tropics.
• Forecasting species' elevational redistribution requires considering the combined impacts of climate and land-use change to predict biodiversity loss.