Adjusting the lens of invasion biology to focus on the impacts of climate-driven range shifts

Wallingford, P. D./Morelli, T. L., Allen, J. M., Beaury, E. M., Blumenthal, D. M., Bradley, B. A., Dukes, J. S., Early, R., Fusco, E. J., Goldberg, D. E., Ibáñez , I., Laginhas, B. B., Vilà, M., Sorte, C. J. B. (2020). Adjusting the lens of invasion biology to focus on the impacts of climate-driven range shifts. Nature Climate Change, 10, 398–405. PDF.

Summary

Climate change is causing species to shift their distributions in order to track their preferred temperature and precipitation regimes. A primary conservation goal in the current era is to aid these climate-driven range shifts by protecting and creating landscape corridors, or even encouraging shifts by moving southern species.  However, as species move into new areas, there will be novel species interactions within the recipient communities, and in some cases, climate-driven range shifters will have adverse impacts. There is an opportunity to lean on the expertise of invasive species ecology, including tools like the Environmental Impact Classification for Alien Taxa (EICAT) to better predict which range shifters will disrupt recipient communities.

Take home points

  • Climate-driven range shifts are creating new interactions among species across the globe.

  • Some of these range shifters, like mangroves shifting into salt marsh or southern pine beetle shifting into the northeastern U.S., could cause major negative impacts on resident ecosystems.

Management implications

The paper lays out clear actions that managers and practitioners can take to address potential problems with range-shifting species:

  • Researchers and managers can work together to identify priority ecological and cultural species to protect

  • Identify management priorities for range-shifting species and recipient communities according to their conservation status, their importance and uniqueness

  • Incorporate species distribution model forecasts to determine climate-driven range-shifters moving into your management area.

  • Use tools, such as EICAT or other risk assessments, to identify range-shifting species with a high-risk of impact.

  • Monitor changes in recipient communities

Keywords

Range Expansion; Review; Range shifting