Suchergebnisse

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 (km2) 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 ...

Aim: To quantify the impact of the 2019–2020 megafires on Australian plant diversity by assessing burnt area across 26,062 species ranges and the effects of fire history on recovery potential. Further, to exemplify a strategic approach to prioritizing plant species affected by fire for recovery actions and conservation planning at a national scale. Location: Australia. Methods: We combine data on geographic range, fire extent, response traits and fire history to assess the proportion of species ranges burnt in both the 2019–2020 fires and the past. Results: Across Australia, suitable habitat for 69% of all plant species was burnt (17,197 species) by the 2019–2020 fires and herbarium specimens confirm the presence of 9,092 of these species across the fire extent since 1950. Burnt ranges include those of 587 plants listed as threatened under national legislation (44% of Australia's threatened plants). A total of 3,998 of the 17,197 fire-affected species are known to resprout after fire, but at least 2,928 must complete their entire life cycle—from germinant to reproducing adult—prior to subsequent fires, as they are killed by fire. Data on previous fires show that, for 257 species, the historical intervals between fire events across their range are likely too short to allow regeneration. For a further 411 species, future fires during recovery will increase extinction risk as current populations are dominated by immature individuals. Main conclusion: Many Australian plant species have strategies to persist under certain fire regimes, and will recover given time, suitable conditions and low exposure to threats. However, short fire intervals both before and after the 2019–2020 fire season pose a serious risk to the recovery of at least 595 species. Persistent knowledge gaps about species fire response and post-fire population persistence threaten the effective long-term management of Australian vegetation in an increasingly pyric world.