Does threatened species listing status predict climate change risk? A case study with Australian Persoonia (Proteaceae) species

Abstract

Climate change risk assessments are essential for the successful conservation and management of species under future climates. However, many management plans fail to include such assessments when evaluating threats to species or ecological communities. Species distribution models (SDMs) are versatile tools that can estimate species exposure to shifts in climate, but they lack information on the response capacity of species to climate change. Functional traits can be used in conjunction with SDMs to understand aspects of species biology that would suggest sensitivity to climate change. We illustrate how exposure to climate change and sensitivity of species based on their traits can be combined to generate predictions of climate change risk in four species listed as threatened (under state and federal legislation) and four unlisted plant species from the endemic Australian genus Persoonia (Proteaceae). We develop distribution models for each species using two emissions scenarios and assess four traits and two range metrics that are recognized as limiting factors in four potential climate change responses (reproduction, movement capability, habitat specialization, and spatial coverage) to assess the sensitivity of these eight species to climate change. Listed and unlisted species varied in niche breadth, environmental envelopes, and the percent contribution of variables to the model building process. Our models project a significant decline in habitat suitability under future climates at current occurrence locations for all species, and a 32–95% reduction in the total area (km 2 ) of suitable habitat for all species by 2060, with significantly greater decline under the higher emissions scenario. Seven out of the eight species assessed ranked high for overall climate sensitivity therefore listing status may be a poor indicator of climate change risk to plant species. This has important implications for the continued focus on threatened taxa in conservation planning, particularly for hyper-diverse groups like plants and invertebrates where a species listing status is influenced by an often-slow progress towards comprehensive assessments of threat status. • Projected climate change exposure was high for all Persoonia we assessed. • Species traits revealed high sensitivity to climate change among most Persoonia we assessed. • Exposure and sensitivity did not differ based on listing status. • A species listing status may be a poor indicator of climate change risk. • Suitable habitat loss for all species was higher under the higher emissions scenario.