Combining conservation status and species distribution models for planning assisted colonisation under climate change

Effects of climate change are particularly important in the Mediterranean Biodiversity hotspot where rising temperatures and drought are negatively affecting several plant taxa, including endemic species. Assisted Colonisation (AC) represents a useful tool for reducing the effect of climate change on endemic plant species threatened by climate change.

We combined SDMs for 188 taxa endemic to Italy with the IUCN red listing range loss threshold under criterion A (30%) to define: a) the number of AC (measured as 2×2 km grid cells that should be occupied by new populations, that is grid cells = new populations) required to fully compensate for predicted range loss and to halt the decline below the 30% of range loss; b) The number of cells necessary to compensate for range loss was calculated as the number of currently occupied cells lost under future climate due to unsuitable conditions. We used two Representative Concentration Pathways, +2.6 and +8.5 W/m2, optimistic and pessimistic sc...