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Strategies for Reducing Extinction Risk under a Changing Climate

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Abstract

In a world characterized by increasing mean temperatures and a higher frequency of climatic extremes, species will reorganize their geographic distributions to track changing conditions, evolve new environmental tolerances, or risk local or global extinction. Limitations on rapid evolutionary change for most organisms of conservation concern suggest that range shifts are the most feasible mechanism for evading extinction under climate change, and migration was a common mode of species response following postglacial warming (Davis and Shaw, 2001). Changes in the geographic ranges of species will cause changes in communities, altering biological systems as we know them and affecting ecosystem services and functions. Central to these ecological changes are changes in cultural, economic, and aesthetic values.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Mark Schwartz and Dov Sax for thoughtful discussion. Jason Dzurisin helped with analyses. The following individuals commented on the manuscript: Lynn Anderson, Jason Dzurisin, Robert Fischman, Travis Marsico, Jessica Mikels-Carrasco, Carsten Nowak, Shannon Pelini, and Teresa Woods.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Notre Dame (Ph.D., Stanford University), Notre Dame, Indiana, US

    Jessica J. Hellmann

  2. Environmental science at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University (Ph.D., University of Arizona), Bloomington, Indiana, US

    Vicky J. Meretsky

  3. Biological sciences, University of Notre Dame (Ph.D., Duke University), Durham, North Carolina, US

    Jason S. McLachlan

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  1. Jessica J. Hellmann
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  2. Vicky J. Meretsky
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  3. Jason S. McLachlan
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Lee Hannah

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Hellmann, J.J., Meretsky, V.J., McLachlan, J.S. (2012). Strategies for Reducing Extinction Risk under a Changing Climate. In: Hannah, L. (eds) Saving a Million Species. Island Press/Center for Resource Economics. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-182-5_19

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