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Habitat associations drive species vulnerability to climate change in boreal forests

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Abstract

Species climate change vulnerability, their predisposition to be adversely affected, has been assessed for a limited portion of biodiversity. Our knowledge of climate change impacts is often based only on exposure, the magnitude of climatic variation in the area occupied by the species, even if species sensitivity, the species ability to tolerate climatic variations determined by traits, plays a key role in determining vulnerability. We analyse the role of species’ habitat associations, a proxy for sensitivity, in explaining vulnerability for two poorly-known but species-rich taxa in boreal forest, saproxylic beetles and fungi, using three IPCC emissions scenarios. Towards the end of the 21st century we projected an improvement in habitat quality associated with an increase of deadwood, an important resource for species, as a consequence of increased tree growth under high emissions scenarios. However, climate change will potentially reduce habitat suitability for ~9–43 % of the threatened deadwood-associated species. This loss is likely caused by future increase in timber extraction and decomposition rates causing higher deadwood turnover, which have a strong negative effect on boreal forest biodiversity. Our results are species- and scenario-specific. Diversified forest management and restoration ensuring deadwood resources in the landscape would allow the persistence of species whose capacity of delivering important supporting ecosystem services can be undermined by climate change.

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Acknowledgments

A.M., M.M., M.T. thank the Academy of Finland (project 138032) for financial support. This work was also supported by the ongoing consortium project ADAPT (proj. 14907, 2012-2016), funded by the Academy of Finland, University of Eastern Finland (consortium project and team 1 led by Prof. Heli Peltola) and Finnish Meteorological Institute (team 2 led by Dr. Jussi Kaurola). We thank the Finnish Meteorological Institute for providing the grid-based ACCLIM climate scenarios throughout Finland and the Finnish Forest Research Institute for the perusal of the sub-sample of data from the 9th National Forest Inventory. Furthermore, we gratefully acknowledge Prof. S. Kellomäki (School of Forest Sciences, University of Eastern Finland) for further development of the SIMA model and instructions given for its use, which were needed for implementation of this research work. We thank SYKE, the Finnish Environment Institute, for the perusal of the data from the Hertta database.

Author attribution

A.M., M.M., M.T. conceived the original idea. H.S., O.-P.T. and J.K. contributed data, analysis tools and technical support. A.M. analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript with help from all the co-authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Macroecology Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Adriano Mazziotta

  2. Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Jyvaskyla, P.O. Box 35, FI-40014, Jyväskylä, Finland

    Adriano Mazziotta, María Triviño & Mikko Mönkkönen

  3. Joensuu Unit, Finnish Forest Research Institute, P.O. Box 68, FI-80101, Joensuu, Finland

    Olli-Pekka Tikkanen

  4. School of Forest Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, FI-80101, Joensuu, Finland

    Olli-Pekka Tikkanen, Jari Kouki & Harri Strandman

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  1. Adriano Mazziotta
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  2. María Triviño
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  3. Olli-Pekka Tikkanen
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  4. Jari Kouki
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  6. Mikko Mönkkönen
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Correspondence to Adriano Mazziotta.

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Mazziotta, A., Triviño, M., Tikkanen, OP. et al. Habitat associations drive species vulnerability to climate change in boreal forests. Climatic Change 135, 585–595 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-015-1591-z

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