Climate change refugia for terrestrial biodiversity Final Report April E. Reside, Jeremy VanDerWal, Ben L. Phillips, Luke P. Shoo, Dan F. Rosauer, Barbara J. Anderson, Justin A. Welbergen, Craig Moritz, Simon Ferrier, Thomas D. Harwood, Kristen J. Williams, Brendan Mackey, Sonia Hugh and Stephen E. Williams CLIMATE CHANGE REFUGIA FOR TERRESTRIAL BIODIVERSITY Defining areas that promote species persistence and ecosystem resilience in the face of global climate change James Cook University AUTHORS April E. Reside, Jeremy VanDerWal, Ben L. Phillips, Luke P. Shoo, Dan F. Rosauer, Barbara J. Anderson, Justin A. Welbergen, Craig Moritz, Simon Ferrier, Thomas D. Harwood, Kristen J. Williams, Brendan Mackey, Sonia Hugh and Stephen E. Williams CO AUTHORS AND CONTRIBUTORS Lauren Hodgson, Yvette M. Williams, Grant Wardell-Johnson, Gunnar Keppel, John Llewellyn, Justin Perry, Genevieve Perkins, Timothy McVicar, Randal Donahue, Margaret Cawsey, Michael Austin, Nadiah Roslan and Eric P. Vanderduys Published by the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility ISBN: 978-1-925039-44-3 NCCARF Publication 73/13 © 2013 James Cook University and the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the copyright holder. Please cite this report as: Reside, AE, VanDerWal, J, Phillips, B, Shoo, LP, Rosauer, DF, Anderson, BA, Welbergen, J, Moritz, C, Ferrier, S, Harwood, TD, Williams, KJ, Mackey, B, Hugh, S, Williams, SE 2013 Climate change refugia for terrestrial biodiversity: Defining areas that promote species persistence and ecosystem resilience in the face of global climate change, National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, Gold Coast, pp. 216. Acknowledgement This work was carried out with financial support from the Australian Government (Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) and the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility. The role of NCCARF is to lead the research community in a national interdisciplinary effort to generate the information needed by decision makers in government, business and in vulnerable sectors and communities to manage the risk of climate change impacts. Eric Vanderduys (CSIRO) and Stewart Macdonald (JCU) helped with vetting the species data. Andrew Amey from the Queensland Museum provided species data. Modelling support was provided by Cassie James, Lauren Hodgson and Stewart Macdonald. Eric Vanderduys and Conrad Hoskin (JCU) provided expert advice on model output evaluation. Participants in the original Principal Investigator meeting which formulated the initial ideas and methods were Simon Ferrier, Gunnar Keppel, John Llewellyn, Brendan Mackey, Craig Moritz, Ben Phillips, April Reside1, Luke Shoo, Jeremy VanDerWal, Grant Wardell-Johnson, Justin Welbergen2, Steve Williams and Yvette Williams. Disclaimer The views expressed herein are not necessarily the views of the Commonwealth or NCCARF, and neither the Commonwealth nor NCCARF accept responsibility for information or advice contained herein. Cover image/s © Mick Stanic, Flickr Creative Commons 1 Funded by National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF) 2 Funded, in part, by ARC Discovery Grant DP110104186 Table of contents ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................. 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .............................................................................................. 2 1. OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH ..................................................................... 5 1.1 Properties of refugia for biodiversity under climate change .................................. 5 1.2 Identifying the spatial location and quality of refugia across the Australian continent ....................................................................................................................... 5 1.2.1 Case study 1: Assessing refugial potential using compositional-turnover modelling ......... 5 1.2.2 Case study 2: Pleistocene stability and diversity of herpetofauna ..................................... 6 1.2.3 Case study 3: Drought refugia in monsoonal Australia ...................................................... 6 1.2.4 Case study 4: Using conservation planning tools to identify regional refugia .................... 6 2. PROPERTIES OF REFUGIA FOR BIODIVERSITY UNDER CLIMATE CHANGE 7 2.1 Authors ................................................................................................................ 7 2.2 Summary ............................................................................................................. 7 2.3 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 7 2.4 Key properties of refugia ...................................................................................... 7 2.4.1 Safeguarding long-term population viability and evolutionary processes ........................... 7 2.4.2 The availability, or proximity, of refugia .............................................................................. 8 2.4.3 Protecting species from the impact of climate change ....................................................... 8 2.5 The ‘ideal’ climate change refugium ..................................................................... 9 2.6 Planning with refugia ........................................................................................... 9 2.7 Conclusions ....................................................................................................... 10 3. IDENTIFYING REFUGIA THROUGH SPECIES DISTRIBUTION MODELLING .. 11 3.1 Authors and contributors .................................................................................... 11 3.2 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 11 3.3 Research activities and methods ....................................................................... 11 3.3.1 Climate data ...................................................................................................................... 11 3.3.2 Environmental stability ...................................................................................................... 12 3.3.3 Distance surfaces ............................................................................................................. 13 3.3.4 Species data ..................................................................................................................... 14 3.3.5 Species distribution modelling .......................................................................................... 14 3.4 Results and outputs ........................................................................................... 16 3.4.1 Environmental stability ...................................................................................................... 17 3.4.2 Past: interglacial ................................................................................................................ 18 3.4.3 Recent: previous 60 years ................................................................................................ 22 Climate change refugia for terrestrial biodiversity iii 3.4.4 Future: current–2085 ......................................................................................................... 23 3.4.5 Distance measures ............................................................................................................ 26 3.4.6 Summary of climatic stability analyses .............................................................................. 28 3.4.7 Species distribution modelling ........................................................................................... 28 3.4.8 Refugia and the national reserve system .......................................................................... 43 3.5 Discussion ......................................................................................................... 47 3.5.1 Climate change across the continent ................................................................................ 47 3.6 Climate change and biodiversity across the continent ........................................ 49 3.7 Gaps and future research .................................................................................. 50 4. CASE STUDY 1: ASSESSING REFUGIAL POTENTIAL USING COMPOSITIONAL-TURNOVER MODELLING .......................................................... 51 4.1 Authors and contributors .................................................................................... 51 4.2 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 51 4.3 Research activities and methods ....................................................................... 53 4.3.1 Study areas ....................................................................................................................... 53 4.3.2 Topographically adjusted climatic variables ...................................................................... 54 4.3.3 Workflow ............................................................................................................................ 55 4.3.4 Other environmental variables .......................................................................................... 56 4.3.5 Biological data ..................................................................................................................