Natural England Commissioned Report NECR162 Climate change refugia for the flora and fauna of England First published 21 November 2014 www.gov.uk/natural-england Foreword Natural England commission a range of reports from external contractors to provide evidence and advice to assist us in delivering our duties. Background A variety of evidence suggests that species and to identify sites in England with the potential have, in the past, been able to withstand the to function as refugia for different taxonomic effects of climatic change in localised groups at a range of spatial scales. environments known as refugia, where specific environmental conditions acted as a buffer The results of this report and the related report against broader-scale climatic changes. Palaeoecological evidence to inform identification of potential climatic change refugia Therefore, an important question for and areas for ecological restoration (NECR163) conservation is whether refugia might exist will be used by Natural England and others to under current and future anthropogenic climate advise on and help design conservation areas change. If there are areas that are likely to and ecological networks that will be resilient to remain relatively climatically stable and so climate change. enable species to persist despite climate change making surrounding areas unsuitable, identifying This report should be cited as: and protecting these places will be an important part of future conservation strategies. SUGGITT, A.J., WILSON, R.J., AUGUST, T.A., BEALE, C.M., BENNIE, J.J., DORDOLO, A., This report is part of a project that is FOX, R., HOPKINS, J.J., ISAAC, N.J.B., investigating this question. The report was JORIEUX, P., MACGREGOR, N.A., commissioned to identify the characteristics of MARCETTEAU, J., MASSIMINO, D., potential refugia, to investigate evidence for the MORECROFT, M.D., PEARCE-HIGGINS, J.W., existence of contemporary refugia by analysing WALKER, K. & MACLEAN, I.M.D. 2014. Climate patterns of local persistence and disappearance change refugia for the flora and fauna of of over 1000 species across a range of taxa, England. Natural England Commissioned Reports, Number 162. Natural England Project Officer - Nicholas Macgregor, Principal Specialist in Landscape Ecology nicholas [email protected] Contractor - Ilya Maclean, Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Penryn, TR10 9EZ [email protected] Keywords - Climate change, refugia, resilience, adaptation, biodiversity, ecological networks, conservation planning Further information This report can be downloaded from the Natural England website: www.gov.uk/natural-england. For information on Natural England publications contact the Natural England Enquiry Service on 0845 600 3078 or e-mail [email protected]. This report is published by Natural England under the Open Government Licence - OGLv3.0 for public sector information. You are encouraged to use, and reuse, information subject to certain conditions. For details of the licence visit www.naturalengland.org.uk/copyright. Natural England photographs are only available for non commercial purposes. If any other information such as maps or data cannot be used commercially this will be made clear within the report. ISBN 978-1-78354-146-1 © Natural England and other parties 2014 A.J. Suggitt1,2, R.J. Wilson2, T.A. August3, C.M. Beale4, J.J. Bennie1, A. Dordolo5, R. Fox6, J.J. Hopkins1, N.J.B. Isaac3, P. Jorieux5, N. A. Macgregor7, J. Marcetteau1,8, D. Massimino9, M.D. Morecroft7, J.W. Pearce-Higgins9, K. Walker10 and I.M.D. Maclean1. 1 Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter. 2 Department of Biosciences, University of Exeter. 3 Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford. 4 Department of Biology, University of York. 5 École Nationale Vétérinaire, Toulouse. 6 Butterfly Conservation, East Lulworth. 7 Natural England, London. 8 Department of Life Sciences, Silwood Park, Imperial College London. 9 British Trust for Ornithology, Thetford. 10 Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. Contents 1. Executive summary ..................................................................................................................... 1 2. Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 3 3. Literature review: determining the characteristics of refugia ........................................................ 4 3.1 Preamble ............................................................................................................................... 4 3.2 Microclimate and its relevance for conservation .................................................................... 4 3.3 Temporal aspects of microclimate and the effect of cloud cover ............................................ 6 3.4 Microclimates lead to microrefugia ........................................................................................ 7 3.5 The properties of refugia that promote species persistence: a literature review ..................... 8 3.6 The role of past refugia in the present day ........................................................................... 10 3.7 Future refugia ...................................................................................................................... 12 3.8 Are the locations or properties of refugia predictable, based on taxon or phylogeny? .......... 14 3.9 Other factors affecting suitable refugial areas ...................................................................... 15 4. Identifying refugia at national scale ........................................................................................... 17 4.1 Introduction.......................................................................................................................... 17 4.2 Methods .............................................................................................................................. 17 Data collation and processing ................................................................................................ 17 Potential predictors of refugia ................................................................................................ 20 Confounding effects ............................................................................................................... 24 Statistical modelling ............................................................................................................... 24 4.3 Results ................................................................................................................................ 29 Statistical modelling results .................................................................................................... 29 Control variables .................................................................................................................... 29 Predictor variables ................................................................................................................. 29 Refugia maps ......................................................................................................................... 36 Protected areas comparison .................................................................................................. 41 4.4 Discussion ........................................................................................................................... 49 Interpreting the interactions between microclimate and climate change ................................. 49 Concluding remarks on national refugia ................................................................................. 50 5. Identifying refugia at the landscape scale .................................................................................. 52 5.1 Introduction.......................................................................................................................... 52 5.2 Methods .............................................................................................................................. 52 Selecting landscapes ............................................................................................................. 52 Data collation and processing ................................................................................................ 55 Statistical modelling ............................................................................................................... 58 Generating refugia maps........................................................................................................ 59 5.3 Results ................................................................................................................................ 59 All species models ................................................................................................................. 59 Taxon-specific models ........................................................................................................... 60 Refugia maps (landscape level) ............................................................................................. 67 5.4 Discussion ........................................................................................................................... 80 6. Identifying refugia in the field: Dartmoor case study .................................................................. 81 6.1 Introduction.........................................................................................................................