climate change and biodiversity: developing tools for assessing impacts and their implications for...

Climate change and biodiversity: Developing tools for assessing

impacts and their implications for conservation

Guy Midgley, Mike Rutherford, Greg Hughes

National Botanical Institute, Cape Town

With acknowledgements: Paul Williams, London Nat Hist Mus

Conservation investment

Conservation investment

Conserve species under natural conditionsConserve ecosystems and their natural processesConserve habitats for maintaining biodiversity

Maintain key processes (eg water yield)Support tourism and ecotourism

Support livelihoods (eg wildflower, medicinal)Support commercial agri-business

Protected Areas often selected ad hoc, developed before good species data were available,

on land not wanted or less valuable

Biodiversity no longer static, but dynamic!

Conservation investment

We address two main problems

• How to predict climate change impacts on ecosystems and species (biodiversity)

• How to assess ability of conservation strategies (current PA network) to cope with these impacts

Species distribution

Bioclimatic modeling methodBioclimatic modeling method

Environmental variables

34o 36o

# re

cord

s

34o 36o

Maximum temperature

Max temp envelope

Species distribution

Bioclimatic modeling methodBioclimatic modeling method

Environmental variables

34o 36o

Automated methods

Arcview

Access

SPlus

Grads

Data matching

Species data

Statistical model

Climate data

Future projectionrisk assessment

Protea Atlas database (NBI)330 species (Proteaceae), ~ 40 000 localities

HadCM2

Overall threat of climate change to Proteaceae diversity

Fynbos Biome distribution: current and future

Lowland species

Montane species

Leucospermum tomentosum distribution: current and ~2050(HadCM2 excluding sulphates)

Protea lacticolor distribution: current and future(HadCM2 excluding sulphates)

20 km

contract(highest risk)

persist(safe) colonize

(high risk)

Displacement risk = 1 – persist/current

Proteaceae - displacement risk

y = 0.8736e-0.0003x

R2 = 0.48

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000

Present Range Size (km2)

Ris

k o

f d

isp

lac

em

en

t

contract(highest risk)

persist(safe) colonize

(high risk)

Extinction risk proportional to range loss(with and without dispersal)

Uncertainties

Climate scenariosSpatial climate data (historic, current)

Species distribution dataBioclimatic modelling approach

Human land useDispersal and establishment

Ant-dispersal Wind-dispersal

Knowledge about dispersal syndromes is critical

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

current 2050 dispersal 2050 no dispersal

Ran

ge

size

(1'

x1' p

ixel

s)

Range size changes (HadCM2)(~250 Proteaceae, 2000 to ~2050)

Automated methods

Arcview

Access

SPlus

Grads

Data matching

Species data

Statistical model

Climate data

Future projectionrisk assessment

Dynamic rangemodelling method

Protected arearisk analysis

Simple rangeshift assumptions

Time-slice models 2000 2010 2020

2030 2040 2050

(se scop)

Richness of dispersal pathways for the 18 species that are committed to migration

Human land use, intensity of transformation

Dispersal pathways

Automated methods

Arcview

Access

SPlus

Grads

Data matching

Species data

Statistical model

Climate data

Future projectionrisk assessment

Dynamic rangemodelling method

Protected arearisk analysis

Simple rangeshift assumptions