Abstract
Dynamic models for range expansion provide a promising tool for assessing species’ capacity to respond to climate change by shifting their ranges to new areas. However, these models include a number of uncertainties which may affect how successfully they can be applied to climate change oriented conservation planning. We used RangeShifter, a novel dynamic and individual-based modelling platform, to study two potential sources of such uncertainties: the selection of land cover data and the parameterization of key life-history traits. As an example, we modelled the range expansion dynamics of two butterfly species, one habitat specialist (Maniola jurtina) and one generalist (Issoria lathonia). Our results show that projections of total population size, number of occupied grid cells and the mean maximal latitudinal range shift were all clearly dependent on the choice made between using CORINE land cover data vs. using more detailed grassland data from three alternative national databases. Range expansion was also sensitive to the parameterization of the four considered life-history traits (magnitude and probability of long-distance dispersal events, population growth rate and carrying capacity), with carrying capacity and magnitude of long-distance dispersal showing the strongest effect. Our results highlight the sensitivity of dynamic species population models to the selection of existing land cover data and to uncertainty in the model parameters and indicate that these need to be carefully evaluated before the models are applied to conservation planning.
Highlights
One of the challenges in conservation and management planning is developing robust assessments of the impacts of climate change on species’ ranges
For Issoria lathonia there is again greater total amount of suitable habitat when using CORINE database compared to Agri-environment scheme (AES)-National Survey-SLICES databases (160,075 ha versus 60,035 ha)
An illustration for Maniola jurtina for two 10610 km example grid cells shows one area where the CORINE-based habitat availability pattern is broadly similar to those based on data from AES-managed grasslands and grasslands included in the National Survey (Figure 2A vs. B), and another area where the CORINE data suggests that much more suitable habitat occurs in the landscape than AES - National Survey data (Figure 2C vs. D)
Summary
One of the challenges in conservation and management planning is developing robust assessments of the impacts of climate change on species’ ranges. To date, such assessments have relied on static ‘bioclimatic envelope’ (‘BEMs’), or ‘environmental niche’ models (‘ENMs’) [1,2], which relate the species’ distributions to current climate and project future ranges by fitting the derived models to different climate scenarios. The capacity of BEMs to provide useful guidelines for climate change oriented conservation planning is limited. Their outputs are rather coarse-scaled and provide little understanding of potential differences in species’ responses in different parts of the study region [3,4]. Connectivity of the habitat network has a critical role in species’ range dynamics [8,9]
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