Global patterns of climate change impacts on desert bird communities

作者：Liang Ma, Shannon R. Conradie, Christopher L. Crawford, Alexandra S. Gardner, Michael Kearney, Ilya M. D. Maclean, Andrew E. McKechnie, Chunrong Mi, Rebecca A. Senior, David S. Wilcove · 发表于：Nature Communications · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1038/s41467-023-35814-8 · 被引用次数：52 · 研究领域：Species Distribution and Climate Change、Wildlife Ecology and Conservation、Avian ecology and behavior

The world's warm deserts are predicted to experience disproportionately large temperature increases due to climate change, yet the impacts on global desert biodiversity remain poorly understood. Because species in warm deserts live close to their physiological limits, additional warming may induce local extinctions. Here, we combine climate change projections with biophysical models and species distributions to predict physiological impacts of climate change on desert birds globally. Our results show heterogeneous impacts between and within warm deserts. Moreover, spatial patterns of physiological impacts do not simply mirror air temperature changes. Climate change refugia, defined as warm desert areas with high avian diversity and low predicted physiological impacts, are predicted to persist in varying extents in different desert realms. Only a small proportion (<20%) of refugia fall within existing protected areas. Our analysis highlights the need to increase protection of refugial areas within the world's warm deserts to protect species from climate change.