Abstract
An individual-based model of animal dispersal and population dynamics was used to test the effects of different climate change adaptation strategies on species range shifting ability, namely the improvement of existing habitat, restoration of low quality habitat and creation of new habitat. These strategies were implemented on a landscape typical of fragmentation in the United Kingdom using spatial rules to differentiate between the allocation of strategies adjacent to or away from existing habitat patches. The total area being managed in the landscape was set at realistic levels based on recent habitat management trends. Eight species were parameterised to broadly represent different stage structure, population densities and modes of dispersal. Simulations were initialised with the species occupying 20% of the landscape and run for 100. years. As would be expected for a range of real taxa, range shifting abilities were dramatically different. This translated into large differences in their responses to the adaptation strategies. With conservative (0.5%) estimates of the area prescribed for climate change adaptation, few species display noticeable improvements in their range shifting, demonstrating the need for greater investment in future adaptation. With a larger (1%) prescribed area, greater range shifting improvements were found, although results were still species-specific. It was found that increasing the size of small existing habitat patches was the best way to promote range shifting, and that the creation of new stepping stone features, whilst beneficial to some species, did not have such broad effect across different species.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 222-229 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Ecological Informatics |
Volume | 30 |
Early online date | 25 Jun 2015 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Nov 2015 |
Bibliographical note
AcknowledgementsN.S. was supported by an EPSRC Doctoral Training Centre grant (EP/G03690X/1). K.B. was supported by the EU (FP7-IEF) Marie Curie Fellowship, project RANGESHIFT (Grant Agreement number: 302546). This work was also supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (NE/J008001/1), and funding from the Forestry Commission.
Keywords
- Connectivity
- Dispersal
- Ecological networks
- Habitat restoration
- Population dynamics
- RangeShifter