Final Memo for "Connectivity for Climate Change in the Southeastern United States"
Dates
Date Reported
2015-06-16
Summary
Climate change is already affecting biodiversity, in particular shifting the ranges of species as they move to cooler places. One problem for wildlife as their ranges shift is that their path is often impeded by habitat fragmentation. Because of this, the most common recommended strategy to protect wildlife as climate changes is to connect their habitats, providing them safe passage. There are great challenges to implementing this strategy in the southeastern US, however, because most intervening lands between habitat patches are held in private ownership. In partnership with South Atlantic LCC members, we assessed current and projected connectivity for three species that inhabit bottomland hardwoods throughout the southeastern US: [...]
Summary
Climate change is already affecting biodiversity, in particular shifting the ranges of species as they move to cooler places. One problem for wildlife as their ranges shift is that their path is often impeded by habitat fragmentation. Because of this, the most common recommended strategy to protect wildlife as climate changes is to connect their habitats, providing them safe passage. There are great challenges to implementing this strategy in the southeastern US, however, because most intervening lands between habitat patches are held in private ownership. In partnership with South Atlantic LCC members, we assessed current and projected connectivity for three species that inhabit bottomland hardwoods throughout the southeastern US: black bear ( Ursus americanus), Rafinesque’s big-eared bat ( Corynorhinus rafinesquii), and timber rattlesnake ( Crotalus horridus). For each species, we measured connectivity using three different modeling approaches that incorporated three types of resistance layers. We found that there was not a high degree of overlap between connectivity models for each species, suggesting a limited capacity for “umbrella” estimates of connectivity. Incorporating climate change showed that on average under future climate conditions, linkages decreased in suitability compared to current conditions. These results suggest that, for these three species at least, connectivity modeling should focus on species-specific traits. Managers should be aware that outcomes of connectivity modeling may be specific to the type of model used, and potentially consider multiple species planning for connectivity in a region. Climate change is likely to decrease connectivity overall in a species-specific manner and may vary by geographic region.
