Refugia: identifying and understanding safe havens for biodiversity under climate change

作者：Gunnar Keppel, Kimberly P. Van Niel, Grant Wardell‐Johnson, Colin J. Yates, Margaret Byrne, Ladislav Mucina, A.G.T. Schut, Stephen D. Hopper, Steven E. Franklin · 发表于：Global Ecology and Biogeography · 年份：2011 · DOI：10.1111/j.1466-8238.2011.00686.x · 被引用次数：1237 · 研究领域：Species Distribution and Climate Change、Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Wildlife Ecology and Conservation

ABSTRACT Aim Identifying and protecting refugia is a priority for conservation under projected anthropogenic climate change, because of their demonstrated ability to facilitate the survival of biota under adverse conditions. Refugia are habitats that components of biodiversity retreat to, persist in and can potentially expand from under changing environmental conditions. However, the study and discussion of refugia has often been ad hoc and descriptive in nature. We therefore: (1) provide a habitat‐based concept of refugia, and (2) evaluate methods for the identification of refugia. Location Global. Methods We present a simple conceptual framework for refugia and examine the factors that describe them. We then demonstrate how different disciplines are contributing to our understanding of refugia, and the tools that they provide for identifying and quantifying refugia. Results Current understanding of refugia is largely based on Quaternary phylogeographic studies on organisms in North America and Europe during significant temperature fluctuations. This has resulted in gaps in our understanding of refugia, particularly when attempting to apply current theory to forecast anthropogenic climate change. Refugia are environmental habitats with space and time dimensions that operate on evolutionary time‐scales and have facilitated the survival of biota under changing environmental conditions for millennia. Therefore, they offer the best chances for survival under climate change for m...