Abstract
AbstractClimate change is a significant threat to biodiversity globally. Here, we assessed the risk to 544 birds in the United States from future climate change‐related threats under a mitigation‐dependent global warming scenario of 1.5°C and an unmitigated scenario of 3.0°C. Threats considered included sea level rise, human land cover conversion, and extreme weather events. We identified potential impacts to individual species by overlaying future bird ranges with threats to calculate the proportion of species' ranges affected, and mapped a place‐based index of risk based on hazard (coincident threats), exposure (potential species richness), and vulnerability (potential richness of vulnerable species). Extreme weather events had the most extensive spatial coverage and contribution to risk, but urbanization and sea level rise also had disproportionate impacts on species relative to their coverage. With unmitigated climate change, multiple coincident threats affected over 88% of the area of the conterminous United States, and 97% of species could be affected by two or more climate‐related threats. Some habitat groups will see up to 96% of species facing three or more threats. Species of conservation concern also faced more threats regardless of climate change scenario. However, climate change mitigation would reduce risk to birds from climate change‐related threats across over 90% of the US.
Highlights
Climate change is a significant threat to biodiversity globally, and species must find ways to cope with changing environmental conditions [1,2]
Most threats covered more area under 3.0°C compared to 1.5°C; the one exception was cropland expansion, which affected a small area under both scenarios, but covered nearly three times more area under 1.5°C compared to 3.0°C (2.3% vs 0.8% of the conterminous US; Fig 2)
Our results indicate that with unmitigated climate change, over 88% of the conterminous US will be affected by multiple coincident threats, and the additive nature of these threats compounds the stress climate change already has on biodiversity certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 a license to display the International license
Summary
Climate change is a significant threat to biodiversity globally, and species must find ways to cope with changing environmental conditions [1,2]. Range shifts are expected to be a crucial response to a changing climate, with some species tracking suitable environmental conditions as they move across the landscape [3,4,5]. Range shifts are only part of the climate change story: multiple coincident threats, like extreme weather events and land-use change, are another factor that compounds the risk of climate change [10], since species may face additional obstacles as they move across the landscape in search of suitable conditions [3], which could hinder their ability to respond to climate change through range shifts. Focusing solely on climate change and not including other threats could severely underestimate extinction risk in the future [3,12,13]
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