Refugia play an important role in contributing to the conservation of species and communities by buffering environmental conditions over time. As large natural landscapes worldwide are declining and are increasingly threatened by extreme events, crit...
Climate change is redistributing marine biodiversity and may reduce the long-term effectiveness of static conservation networks. Threatened marine rays may be particularly vulnerable because many species have slow life histories, limited recovery cap...
Chengiodendron marginatum, an evergreen tree or shrub belonging to the Oleaceae family, represents a critical germplasm resource with considerable potential for novel cultivar breeding. To elucidate the adaptive responses of C. marginatum to climate...
Global climate change represents one of the most extensive and pervasive threats to wildlife populations. Amphibians, specifically salamanders, are particularly susceptible to the effects of changing climates due to their restrictive physiological re...
Mediterranean historic landscapes include relict forest ecosystems that preserve significant ecological and biocultural legacies while providing insights into ecosystem resilience under climate change. Among these, low-elevation beech forests (Fagus ...
This study uses a scenario-based approach to ask what are the varying impacts to forest extent and biodiversity from sixteen climate change and forest conversion scenario combinations, and what do they suggest about future forest conservation policy...
This review addresses the critical conservation challenges faced by Pinna nobilis, the noble pen shell, a keystone umbrella species in Mediterranean marine ecosystems. Since 2016, the species has experienced catastrophic population declines due to ma...
Understanding species distribution and environmental niches is crucial for conserving endangered taxa. The recent taxonomic split of the European freshwater mussels U. crassus and U. nanus into distinct species requires a reassessment of their distin...
Climate change represents a planetary emergency that is exacerbating the loss of native biodiversity. In response, efforts promoting climate change adaptation strategies that improve ecosystem resilience and/or mitigate climate impacts are paramount....
Climate change poses an unprecedented threat to global biodiversity, with birds serving as critical indicators of ecosystem responses. This study assessed the impacts of climate change on 29 endangered bird species in South Korea, a critical stopover...
Carex rupestris is an endangered and rare arctic-alpine element of the Western Carpathian flora. Given the geographically isolated and spatially restricted peripheral ranges of arctic-alpine species, there is a good chance that many species of conser...
This study presents the first data on the distribution of the Mediterranean medicinal leech Hirudo verbana in Romania, as well as the first molecular characterization of the Romanian populations, using mitochondrial DNA markers. In total, 133 specime...
Empirical evidence integrating multiple biological levels on freshwater biodiversity persistence in regulated river basins remains scarce for Neotropical systems. We evaluated fish assemblage structure, reproductive strategies, and life-cycle support...
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is one of the oldest conservation organizations in the United States and is the only federal agency solely charged with conserving fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats. The agency leads numerous conserv...
Dry rainforest communities are globally threatened by anthropogenic pressures and climatic change but are less well researched and more poorly conserved than mesic rainforests. In response to the increasing loss of biodiversity, the Australian Govern...
In 2020 marine heatwaves elicited severe bleaching on many of Earth’s coral reefs. We compared coral reef benthic community composition before (April 2020), during (September 2020), and after (December 2020–September 2021) this event at f...
The Iranian Ground Jay (Podoces pleskei) is the endemic bird species inhabiting the deserts and steppes of Iran, a region experiencing severe ecological disturbances like habitat loss and fragmentation of preferred habitat. Despite its remarkable ada...
An association between long-term climatic stability and endemism has been suggested, but it has been tested in plants and vertebrates rather than invertebrates. Using high-resolution paleoclimate reconstructions (CHELSA-TraCE21k; 21,000 BP–pres...
Coral reefs around Hainan Island in the northern South China Sea represent a marginal reef system exposed to interacting climatic and anthropogenic stresses. This study used an optimized MaxEnt model, remote-sensing-derived coral reef occurrence data...
The koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) is recognised as threatened across two thirds of its distribution and identified as particularly susceptible to climate change. The aim of this study was to assess the spatio-temporal variation in microclimate acros...
Conservation priorities and decisions can be informed by understanding diversity patterns and the evolutionary history of ecosystems, and phylogenetic metrics can contribute to this. This project used a range of diversity metrics in concert to examin...
Global climate change and intensifying anthropogenic pressures pose unprecedented challenges to global biodiversity, with endangered species often experiencing particularly severe reductions in suitable habitats. In this study, we used the MaxEnt mod...
Mitochondrial DNA is a powerful marker for reconstructing maternal lineages and phylogeographic history in wild species. The snow sheep (Ovis nivicola), a mountain ungulate endemic to Siberia and the Russian Far East, is characterized by strong geogr...
The availability of appropriate refugia may ameliorate some impacts of habitat degradation and can aid in the conservation of target species. In addition to natural refugia, the provision of artificial refugia may be viable, particularly in degraded...
Droughts and insect outbreaks are primary disturbance processes linking climate change to tree mortality in western North America. Refugia from these disturbances—locations where impacts are less severe relative to the surrounding landscape&mda...
Fire refugia play an important role in post-fire ecosystem recovery because they preserve areas that represent a persistent legacy in the landscape and serve as propagule sources for forest regeneration. Our objective was to identify the pre-fire top...
Climate change poses a great challenge for biodiversity conservation. Several studies exist regarding climate change’s impacts on European plants, yet none has investigated how climate change will affect the extinction risk of the entire endemi...
The Klamath-Siskiyou Ecoregion (KSE) of southwest Oregon–northern California, USA, has globally exceptional biodiversity but is experiencing mounting pressures from climate change and land uses. We conducted an ecoregional conservation assessme...
Studying current and future geographic distribution is essential for conserving endangered species such as the Boreal Owl and Eurasian Pygmy Owl. The main aim of this study was to determine the potential distribution of both species in the Balkan Pen...
Urban parks derived from historical forest fragments represent important refugia for biodiversity in rapidly expanding cities. The wood cricket, Nemobius sylvestris, was surprisingly found in a park in the northern part of Bucharest, Romania, an area...
Picea koraiensis (Korean spruce) is a boreal tree species of considerable ecological and economic importance in Northeast Asia, particularly within its natural range in China, Russia and the Korean Peninsula. This study investigated spatial variation...
Climate change is expected to alter the distribution of many threatened mammals, yet national-scale identification of climate refugia and conservation priorities remains limited for South Korea. This study aimed to map current hotspots and future ref...
The incorporation of climate refugia concepts in large-scale protection efforts (e.g., 30% protected by 2030, 50% by 2050) is needed to forestall the global extinction crisis. The 8.19 M ha Northern Rockies Ecoregion (NRE) of western Montana, northea...
Liriodendron chinense (Hemsl.), a Tertiary relic tree, is mainly distributed in subtropical China. The causes of the geographical distribution pattern of this species are poorly understood. In this study, we inferred historical dispersal routes and g...
Changes in habitat suitability are critical indicators of the ecological impacts of climate change. Syndiclis Hook. f., a rare and endangered genus endemic to montane limestone and cloud forest ecosystems in China, holds considerable ecological and e...
Coral reefs in Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman waters of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have historically been dominated by Acropora corals. By early 2021, however, extensive Acropora cover remained at only two UAE locations: the fringing reefs of Sir...
Beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) is one of the most important forest trees in Europe and its current broad expanse over the continent is believed to be the outcome of the Holocene postglacial expansion of lineages originating from different glacial refugia...
Colonization of the “remnants of the natural world” or “last wild spaces” is a process that continues at the present time. This colonization is mainly happening in unprotected spaces outside the global protected area network b...
As a typical turbid-water reef coral, Turbinaria peltata shows strong tolerance to high temperature and sediment disturbance, yet its basin-scale niche drivers and glacial distribution dynamics across the Indo-West Pacific remain unclear. Here we con...
Defining units of conservation below the species level is a widely accepted conservation priority, but is especially challenging for widespread taxa that have experienced diverse geographic histories and exist across heterogenous environments. The la...
Coral reefs in the South China Sea (SCS) are critical for regional marine biodiversity and ecosystem services but face escalating threats from climate change and anthropogenic stressors. However, a holistic evaluation of habitat suitability spanning...
Climate change and biodiversity loss are two severe challenges that the world is facing. Studying the distribution shifts of species in response to climate change could provide insights into long-term conservation and biodiversity maintenance. Myotis...
Perkinsiodendron macgregorii, an endangered Chinese endemic tree with high ornamental and ecological value, faces extinction threats due to its poor natural regeneration and habitat degradation. Despite the urgent need for its conservation, the genet...
Given that Acer sutchuenense Franch., an endangered maple endemic to China, severely threatened by habitat degradation and climate fluctuations, understanding its spatiotemporal dynamics is crucial for formulating conservation strategies. Herein, cli...
Megafishes are important to people and ecosystems worldwide. These fishes attain a maximum body weight of ≥30 kg. Global population declines highlight the need for more information about megafishes’ conservation status to inform management and conser...
Riparian zones are critical for functional integrity of riverscapes and conservation of riverscape biodiversity. The synergism of intermediate flood-induced disturbances, moist microclimates, constant nutrient influx, high productivity, and resource...
The depressed river mussel Pseudanodonta complanata (Rossmässler, 1835) is an endangered freshwater bivalve with sparse distribution across Europe. Despite its high conservation priority, available data on the current population genetics and bio...
The extremely inhospitable Antarctic ecosystems confine plants and invertebrates to sparse ice-free areas. These species survived for millions of years in isolated refugia where population divergence and differentiation can occur, potentially resulti...
OCBIL theory addresses the ecology, evolution, and conservation of biodiversity and cultural diversity on old climatically buffered infertile landscapes, which are especially prominent in southwest Australia and the Greater Cape Region of South Afric...
About 10% of the Earth’s butterfly species inhabit the highly diverse ecosystems of China. Important for the ecological, economic, and cultural services they provide, many butterfly species experience threats from land use shifts and climate ch...
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