Fine-grain modeling of species’ response to climate change: holdouts, stepping-stones, and microrefugia

• Published in: Trends in ecology & evolution (Amsterdam) Vol. 29; no. 7; pp. 390 - 397
• Main Authors: Hannah, Lee, Flint, Lorraine, Syphard, Alexandra D., Moritz, Max A., Buckley, Lauren B., McCullough, Ian M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01.07.2014; Elsevier
• Subjects: Animal and plant ecology; Animal Distribution; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Applied ecology; Biological and medical sciences; Climate Change; Climatology. Bioclimatology. Climate change; conservation; Conservation of Natural Resources; Conservation, protection and management of environment and wildlife; Earth, ocean, space; Exact sciences and technology; External geophysics; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects; General aspects. Techniques; holdout; Meteorology; Methods and techniques (sampling, tagging, trapping, modelling...); Microclimate; microrefugia; Plant Dispersal; range shift; stepping-stone; conservation; holdout; range shift; stepping-stone; microrefugia; climate change; Dynamical climatology; Climate change; Grains; Modeling; Conservation corridor
• ISSN: 0169-5347; 1872-8383
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2014.04.006

•Understanding of microclimates may revolutionize climate change biology.•Microrefugia will be rare under future climate change.•Conservation strategies should focus on managing holdouts and stepping stones. Microclimates have played a critical role in past species range shifts, suggesting that they could be important in biological response to future change. Terms are needed to discuss these future effects. We propose that populations occupying microclimates be referred to as holdouts, stepping stones and microrefugia. A holdout is a population that persists in a microclimate for a limited period of time under deteriorating climatic conditions. Stepping stones successively occupy microclimates in a way that facilitates species’ range shifts. Microrefugia refer to populations that persist in microclimates through a period of unfavorable climate. Because climate projections show that return to present climate is highly unlikely, conservation strategies need to be built around holdouts and stepping stones, rather than low-probability microrefugia.