Climate change vulnerability assessment of species

TY - JOUR

T1 - Climate change vulnerability assessment of species

AU - Foden, Wendy

AU - Young, Bruce

AU - Akçakaya, Resit

AU - Garcia, Raquel

AU - Hoffman, Ary

AU - Stein, Bruce

AU - Thomas, Chris

AU - Wheatley, Christopher John

AU - Bickford, David

AU - Carr, Jamie

AU - Hole, David

AU - Martin, Tara

AU - Pacifici, Michela

AU - Pearce-Higgins, James W.

AU - Platts, Philip John

AU - Visconti, Piero

AU - Watson, James

AU - Huntley, Brian

N1 - © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details.

PY - 2019/1/1

Y1 - 2019/1/1

N2 - Assessing species’ vulnerability to climate change is a prerequisite for developing effective strategies to conserve them. The last three decades have seen exponential growth in the number of studies evaluating how, how much, why, when, and where species will be impacted by climate change. We provide an overview of the rapidly developing field of climate change vulnerability assessment (CCVA) and describe the key concepts, terms, important steps and considerations. We stress the importance of identifying the full range of pressures, impacts and their associated mechanisms that species face and using this as a basis for selecting the appropriate assessment approaches for quantifying vulnerability. We outline four CCVA assessment approaches, namely trait-based, correlative, mechanistic and combined approaches and discuss their use. Since any assessment can deliver unreliable or even misleading results when incorrect data and parameters are applied, we discuss finding, selecting, and applying input data and provide examples of open-access resources. Because rare, small-range, and declining-range species are often of particular concern and pose significant challenges for CCVA, we describe alternative ways to assess them. We also describe how CCVAs can be used to inform IUCN Red List assessments of extinction risk. Finally, we suggest future directions in this field and propose areas where research efforts may be particularly valuable.

AB - Assessing species’ vulnerability to climate change is a prerequisite for developing effective strategies to conserve them. The last three decades have seen exponential growth in the number of studies evaluating how, how much, why, when, and where species will be impacted by climate change. We provide an overview of the rapidly developing field of climate change vulnerability assessment (CCVA) and describe the key concepts, terms, important steps and considerations. We stress the importance of identifying the full range of pressures, impacts and their associated mechanisms that species face and using this as a basis for selecting the appropriate assessment approaches for quantifying vulnerability. We outline four CCVA assessment approaches, namely trait-based, correlative, mechanistic and combined approaches and discuss their use. Since any assessment can deliver unreliable or even misleading results when incorrect data and parameters are applied, we discuss finding, selecting, and applying input data and provide examples of open-access resources. Because rare, small-range, and declining-range species are often of particular concern and pose significant challenges for CCVA, we describe alternative ways to assess them. We also describe how CCVAs can be used to inform IUCN Red List assessments of extinction risk. Finally, we suggest future directions in this field and propose areas where research efforts may be particularly valuable.

KW - IUCN Red List

KW - climate change vulnerability

KW - conservation planning

KW - species conservation

KW - vulnerability assessment

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85054864637&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/wcc.551

DO - 10.1002/wcc.551

M3 - Review article

SN - 1757-7799

VL - 10

SP - 1

EP - 36

JO - WIREs Climate Change

JF - WIREs Climate Change

IS - 1

M1 - e551

ER -