climate change applications of ecological niche modeling

Effects of Global Climate Change on Birds

Town PetersonBiodiversity InstituteUniversity of Kansas

Niche Modeling and Climate Change

• Move from speculation to prediction• Objective, quantitative approaches to

anticipating climate change effects on biodiversity

• Techniques broadly applicable … understanding and anticipating biodiversity shifts, species invasions, disease risk, etc.

Abiotic niche

Biotic interactionsAccessibility

Area presenting appropriate combinations of abiotic and biotic conditions (= potential distribution)

Actual geographic distribution(abiotic and biotic conditions fulfilled,accessible to dispersers)

Timescale and Conservatism

Niche Conservatism and Climate Change• Niches are conserved across reasonable

periods of evolutionary time• Niches of species are not expected to change

over time periods as short as in the current period of “global warming”

• Therefore, we can—at least as an initial assumption—be confident that niche evolution will not be an important factor in species’ responses to current climate change

Direct climate effects

Mountains vs Flatlands

Steller’s Jay beforeSteller’s Jay afterPygmy Nuthatch beforePygmy Nuthatch after

Baird’s Sparrow beforeBaird’s Sparrow afterLesser Prairie-Chicken beforeLesser Prairie-Chicken after

Mountains vs Flatlands

Percent Change - No Dispersal

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Centroid Distance - No Dispersal

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Green = montane speciesBlue = flatlands species

It’s Happening …

INDirect effects via marine intrusion

Coastline Topography and Marine Intrusion

New Zealand - Coromandel Coast

South Coast New Guinea

The Americas

Global Projected Extinctions from Marine Intrusion

Global Species Losses: 181 species under the 1 m scenario 337 species under the 6 m scenario out of 18,628 current species considered

North Carolina Coast Study

• Department of Energy funding• Special opportunity because digital elevation

model resolved to 1 cm vertically for NC coast• First exploration of climate change effects on

ecosystem shifts using correlational tools

COMPOUND effects: Climate change and marine intrusion

Mexican Sheartail Doricha eliza

Joint Effects

Double whammy More species affected

Joint Effects (Preliminary)

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Percent loss owing to climate change

Conclusions

General Geographic Expectations for Biodiversity

Species will respond in general by – moving to track appropriate conditions– adapting to new conditions– going extinct if failing both of the above

Geographic tracking will generally be – upward in elevation– poleward in latitude

BUT Species are individualistic in their responsesDispersal abilities will be key in system behaviorEffects will be more serious in flatlands systems than in montane systemsEffects will be more serious in bounded systems than in continuous/contiguous systems