Biodiversity and Climate Change
Biodiversity and Climate Change
Climate change and biodiversity loss are deeply interconnected environmental crises. Rising temperatures, changing rainfall, drought, wildfire, marine heatwaves, ocean warming, altered river temperatures, sea-level rise, and increasingly extreme weather are changing where species can survive and how ecosystems function. At the same time, the degradation of forests, wetlands, grasslands, oceans, peatlands, and other ecosystems can reduce carbon storage and weaken nature's capacity to moderate climate change.
Research spanning several decades shows that biological responses to climate change are already occurring. Species have shifted toward higher latitudes, greater elevations, deeper waters, and newly suitable habitats. Seasonal events such as flowering, migration, breeding, and leaf emergence are also changing. Some species can adjust their behavior, physiology, distribution, or timing, but others are unable to respond rapidly enough.
The consequences extend beyond individual species. Climate change can reorganize entire ecological communities, create novel combinations of species, disrupt food webs and ecological interactions, alter ecosystem productivity, and change the benefits that nature provides to people.
Species Range Shifts and Redistribution
One of the clearest biological signals of climate change is the redistribution of species.
As temperatures change, many organisms move toward climates that more closely resemble the conditions to which they are adapted. Terrestrial species may move poleward or upslope, while marine organisms may shift toward cooler waters or greater depths. Butterflies, birds, mammals, fishes, plants, and many other groups have shown measurable changes in their geographic distributions.
The concept of climate velocity describes how rapidly climatic conditions move across landscapes or oceans. Species living where climate conditions are changing quickly may need to migrate rapidly simply to remain within familiar temperature conditions.
Migration, however, is not always possible. Mountains, coastlines, fragmented habitats, cities, agricultural landscapes, dams, roads, and other barriers can prevent species from reaching suitable habitat.
Some geographic areas may become climate sinks, where suitable climatic conditions disappear without an accessible replacement habitat. Mountaintop species are particularly vulnerable because populations moving upward eventually run out of higher ground.
Species redistribution also creates new ecological communities. Species that historically did not occur together increasingly encounter one another as their ranges shift at different rates.
These changes can alter competition, predation, pollination, disease transmission, fisheries, agriculture, and ecosystem functioning.
Extinction Risk
Climate change can increase extinction risk when species lose suitable habitat faster than they can adapt or migrate.
Research has repeatedly found that projected extinction risks rise as global temperatures increase. The magnitude of future losses varies among studies because projections depend on emissions scenarios, biological assumptions, dispersal capacity, species characteristics, geographic scale, and modelling techniques.
Local extinction may occur long before the global disappearance of a species. Populations at the warmest portions of species' ranges may disappear as temperatures exceed physiological or ecological limits.
Climate-driven extinction can occur through several mechanisms, including:
- direct exposure to lethal temperatures;
- disappearance of suitable climatic habitat;
- drought and water scarcity;
- wildfire;
- extreme heat;
- altered river flows;
- declining oxygen levels in aquatic environments;
- sea-level rise;
- changes in food availability;
- altered competition or predation;
- disease;
- reproductive failure;
- disruption of mutualistic relationships;
- inability to migrate through fragmented landscapes.
Indirect ecological effects can sometimes be as important as direct temperature stress.
Climate change may therefore threaten species even when temperatures remain below their absolute physiological limits.
Extreme Weather and Biodiversity
Climate change is increasing the importance of extreme events as a driver of biodiversity change.
Heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, floods, marine heatwaves, and other climatic extremes can cause rapid population declines that gradual changes in average temperature may not predict.
Extreme heat can expose large numbers of species to temperatures outside their historical experience.
Wildfire represents another growing threat. Climate-driven increases in fire intensity, frequency, or geographic extent can expose already vulnerable species to additional habitat loss.
Drought can reduce water availability, vegetation productivity, food supplies, reproductive success, and habitat quality.
Floods and extreme river flows can restructure freshwater ecosystems.
Marine heatwaves can produce particularly rapid ecological transformations. Severe warming events have damaged coral reefs, kelp forests, seagrass communities, and other marine ecosystems.
When multiple hazards overlap, biodiversity risks can become considerably greater.
Mountains and Climate Change
Mountain ecosystems contain exceptionally high concentrations of biodiversity and endemism.
Elevation creates strong climatic gradients over relatively short geographic distances, allowing mountain species to occupy narrow temperature zones.
As climates warm, many mountain organisms move toward higher elevations.
This creates a serious problem for species already living near summits. Their available habitat may shrink progressively until nowhere cooler remains.
Tropical mountain species may be especially vulnerable because many evolved under relatively narrow temperature ranges.
Mountain biodiversity is not distributed evenly. Different mountain ranges contain different concentrations of plants, vertebrates, invertebrates, and endemic species, meaning conservation priorities vary significantly among regions.
Mountains also serve as important natural laboratories for understanding climate-driven biological change because organisms experience strong climatic differences across relatively short distances.
Freshwater Biodiversity
Freshwater ecosystems are especially vulnerable to climate change because rivers, lakes, wetlands, and streams are strongly influenced by temperature and hydrology.
Rising water temperatures can expose freshwater species to unfamiliar thermal conditions.
River systems may become increasingly fragmented by temperature, leaving populations separated by stretches of unsuitable habitat.
Climate warming can also reduce dissolved oxygen, increasing hypoxia and placing additional stress on aquatic organisms.
Changes in rainfall and snowmelt can alter streamflow, drought frequency, flood intensity, sediment movement, and habitat availability.
Freshwater species often cannot simply migrate poleward because they are restricted to connected river networks or isolated lakes.
Human pressures including dams, pollution, invasive species, water extraction, land-use change, and habitat modification can intensify climate-related risks.
Research nevertheless indicates that habitat complexity and biodiversity themselves can help stabilize some freshwater ecosystems against environmental disturbance.
Oceans and Marine Biodiversity
The oceans have absorbed much of the additional heat generated by anthropogenic climate change.
Marine organisms are therefore experiencing widespread changes in temperature, oxygen conditions, circulation, and habitat suitability.
Marine species frequently shift their geographic distributions as waters warm.
Some species track temperature changes surprisingly closely, creating major ecological and economic consequences when commercially important fishes, predators, prey species, or habitat-forming organisms move into new regions.
Marine heatwaves can cause rapid ecosystem disruption.
Coral reefs are particularly vulnerable to repeated thermal stress and bleaching. Ocean warming interacts with acidification, pollution, overfishing, and habitat degradation, further reducing reef resilience.
Kelp forests and seagrass ecosystems can also suffer severe losses during prolonged marine heatwaves.
Deep-ocean ecosystems are not necessarily protected from climate change. Although absolute temperature changes may be slower in deep water, suitable climatic conditions can shift rapidly across large distances.
Coral Reefs
Coral reefs contain some of Earth's richest concentrations of marine biodiversity.
Climate change threatens reefs primarily through ocean warming and associated coral bleaching, while ocean acidification creates additional stress.
Repeated disturbances can change the ecological structure of coral reefs and reduce the effectiveness of traditional conservation strategies.
Marine protected areas remain important, but protection from fishing or local disturbance alone cannot prevent damage from severe marine heatwaves.
Modern reef conservation therefore increasingly emphasizes multiple approaches, including:
- reducing local pollution;
- sustainable fisheries management;
- marine protected areas;
- protecting climate refugia;
- restoring degraded reefs;
- maintaining ecological connectivity;
- improving water quality;
- reducing greenhouse-gas emissions;
- experimental restoration and assisted-evolution approaches.
No single strategy is likely to protect all reefs under continued warming.
Forests and Plant Biodiversity
Climate change affects forests through temperature, drought, wildfire, storms, pests, disease, changing growing seasons, and shifting species distributions.
Plant communities may reorganize as climate zones move across continents and elevations.
Some floristic regions could substantially change their geographic boundaries.
Tree diversity can sometimes increase ecological stability. More diverse forests may respond differently to temperature changes than simplified plantations or monocultures.
Forest-management strategies increasingly seek to combine carbon storage, biodiversity conservation, wildfire resilience, and adaptation to future climate conditions.
Climate-resilient restoration may require selecting species or populations that can survive future rather than historical climatic conditions.
Genetic diversity is therefore becoming increasingly important in restoration planning.
Mangroves, Seagrasses, and Coastal Ecosystems
Coastal ecosystems face interacting pressures from warming, sea-level rise, storms, land-use change, and human development.
Mangrove forests are particularly important because they simultaneously provide biodiversity habitat, shoreline protection, fisheries support, carbon storage, and resilience against coastal hazards.
Although mangrove losses have slowed in some regions, future sea-level rise and changing cyclone regimes remain serious threats.
Seagrass communities may also undergo extensive geographic reorganization as oceans warm.
Protecting coastal ecosystems can therefore provide both biodiversity and climate benefits.
Climate Change and Ecological Communities
Climate change does not affect every species at the same rate.
Differences in physiology, migration ability, reproduction, behavior, dispersal, and ecological relationships mean that communities can become reorganized even when individual species survive.
Predators may shift differently from prey.
Pollinators may respond differently from flowering plants.
Migratory species may arrive at different times relative to food resources.
Competitors that historically occupied separate climatic zones may begin interacting.
New climates can also create ecological conditions with no close historical equivalent.
Conservation increasingly must contend with ecological novelty: new combinations of climate, species, disturbances, and ecosystem processes.
This challenges the traditional assumption that conservation should always recreate or preserve a fixed historical ecological state.
Biodiversity as a Source of Ecosystem Resilience
Biodiversity is not only affected by climate change; it can also influence how ecosystems respond to climate stress.
Ecologically diverse communities can sometimes maintain ecosystem functions more effectively during drought, heat, and environmental disturbance.
Different species respond differently to stress. When one species declines, another may continue performing a similar ecological function.
This functional redundancy can increase ecosystem stability.
Research on grasslands, forests, and aquatic ecosystems indicates that biodiversity can sometimes buffer ecological productivity or stability during extreme conditions.
Loss of biodiversity may therefore make ecosystems more vulnerable to future climate disruption.
The Climate–Biodiversity Feedback
Climate change accelerates biodiversity loss, but biodiversity loss can also worsen climate change.
Forests, wetlands, peatlands, grasslands, mangroves, seagrasses, soils, and oceans store enormous quantities of carbon.
When these ecosystems are degraded, their capacity to absorb and retain carbon can decline.
In some cases degradation releases stored carbon directly into the atmosphere.
Biodiversity can also influence ecosystem productivity, nutrient cycling, decomposition, soil formation, and carbon storage.
Protecting biodiversity is therefore increasingly recognized as part of climate mitigation rather than as a completely separate environmental objective.
Climate policy and biodiversity policy nevertheless remain distinct. Actions designed exclusively to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions do not automatically protect biodiversity.
Protected Areas in a Changing Climate
Protected areas remain one of the central tools of biodiversity conservation, but climate change complicates their role.
Traditional protected areas are geographically fixed while climatic conditions and species distributions are moving.
Species currently protected within a reserve may eventually encounter unsuitable climatic conditions.
Meanwhile, newly suitable habitats may occur outside existing protected areas.
Future conservation networks may therefore need greater emphasis on:
- ecological connectivity;
- migration corridors;
- elevational gradients;
- climate refugia;
- dynamic conservation planning;
- representative habitat networks;
- protection outside formal reserves;
- adaptive management.
Protected-area planning increasingly uses future climate scenarios rather than relying exclusively on present-day species distributions.
Climate Refugia
Climate refugia are places where environmental conditions are expected to remain relatively buffered from broader climate change.
Examples may include:
- deep valleys;
- shaded slopes;
- groundwater-fed habitats;
- riparian corridors;
- rocky landscapes;
- mountain microclimates;
- deep marine environments;
- locally cooled coastal waters.
Refugia can provide temporary or long-term habitats where vulnerable species survive while surrounding landscapes become unsuitable.
They are increasingly incorporated into conservation planning.
However, no single climate metric can identify refugia for every species. Different organisms respond to temperature, rainfall, hydrology, oxygen, extreme events, and ecological interactions in different ways.
Conservation strategies therefore increasingly identify multiple types of refugia.
Connectivity and Wildlife Corridors
Even when suitable future habitat exists, species must be able to reach it.
Habitat fragmentation can prevent migration across landscapes.
Urban development, agriculture, highways, fences, dams, industrial infrastructure, and degraded habitat can isolate populations.
Climate connectivity describes the degree to which landscapes allow organisms to move from increasingly unsuitable climates toward suitable future conditions.
Greater warming may substantially reduce climate connectivity in some regions.
Protecting wildlife corridors and connected habitat networks is consequently becoming one of the most important strategies for climate adaptation.
Migratory species require particularly large-scale coordination because their annual movements may cross numerous jurisdictions and national borders.
Assisted Migration and Assisted Colonization
Some species may be unable to move quickly enough to keep pace with climate change.
Assisted migration, also called assisted colonization, involves deliberately moving organisms to locations expected to provide suitable future habitat.
The concept remains controversial.
Potential benefits include preventing extinction when natural dispersal is impossible.
Potential risks include:
- introducing species that later become invasive;
- disrupting existing ecosystems;
- moving diseases or parasites;
- incorrectly predicting future habitat suitability;
- losing important local genetic adaptations;
- creating long-term management obligations.
Despite these concerns, assisted migration is increasingly being considered where extinction risk is high and natural migration pathways are severely restricted.
Genetic Diversity and Climate Adaptation
Species are not genetically uniform.
Different populations can possess different adaptations to temperature, rainfall, drought, disease, elevation, or seasonal conditions.
Genetic diversity may therefore determine whether populations can adapt to rapid climate change.
Modern conservation planning increasingly combines species-distribution models with genomic information.
Researchers can identify populations whose genetic composition may be poorly matched to expected future conditions.
Genetic approaches may also help identify populations containing traits useful for restoration or adaptation.
Protecting genetic diversity can therefore provide species with more evolutionary options as environments change.
Nature-Based Solutions
Nature-based solutions seek to address societal challenges by protecting, restoring, or sustainably managing ecosystems.
Examples include:
- restoring forests;
- protecting mangroves;
- restoring wetlands;
- conserving peatlands;
- rehabilitating rivers;
- protecting coastal habitats;
- reconnecting fragmented landscapes;
- restoring native vegetation;
- improving agricultural biodiversity.
Well-designed projects can simultaneously provide climate mitigation, climate adaptation, biodiversity conservation, water regulation, disaster-risk reduction, and human livelihood benefits.
However, nature-based solutions are not automatically beneficial to biodiversity.
For example, planting large monoculture plantations may increase carbon storage while providing relatively poor habitat.
Projects therefore need explicit biodiversity safeguards rather than assuming that every carbon-focused intervention benefits ecosystems.
Renewable Energy and Biodiversity
Rapid expansion of renewable energy is essential for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, but energy infrastructure can itself affect biodiversity.
Solar developments, wind farms, transmission lines, roads, hydropower facilities, and mineral extraction can fragment habitats or disrupt species.
The challenge is not choosing between climate action and biodiversity protection.
Instead, renewable-energy development can be planned to avoid areas of high ecological importance while reducing environmental impacts elsewhere.
Integrated planning is increasingly necessary to prevent climate solutions from unintentionally accelerating biodiversity loss.
Indigenous Knowledge and Local Stewardship
Indigenous peoples and local communities manage or influence many of the world's biodiversity-rich landscapes.
Research increasingly recognizes that traditional ecological knowledge, cultural practices, land stewardship, and community governance can contribute substantially to biodiversity conservation and climate resilience.
Climate change can also threaten culturally important species.
In regions such as the Amazon, changes in plant distributions may affect species used for food, medicine, materials, ceremony, and cultural identity.
Protecting biodiversity can therefore also protect cultural knowledge and relationships between communities and ecosystems.
Effective conservation increasingly emphasizes collaboration with Indigenous peoples and locally led management rather than treating conservation solely as a technical or governmental activity.
Biodiversity and Climate Policy
Climate change and biodiversity loss have historically been addressed through separate international policy systems.
Climate policy primarily operates through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement.
Biodiversity policy primarily operates through the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Global Biodiversity Framework.
Scientific assessments increasingly emphasize that these environmental problems cannot be solved independently.
Actions that protect forests, wetlands, mangroves, peatlands, grasslands, marine habitats, and other ecosystems can provide substantial benefits for both climate and biodiversity.
However, trade-offs are possible.
Climate mitigation projects can damage biodiversity when they encourage poorly located renewable-energy development, monoculture tree plantations, intensive biomass production, or other interventions that prioritize carbon while ignoring ecological complexity.
Better coordination between climate and biodiversity policy is therefore increasingly regarded as essential.
What Decades of Research Show
Modern understanding of climate change and biodiversity developed through decades of ecological research.
By the early 2000s, large global analyses were already identifying consistent biological responses to contemporary warming.
Researchers documented:
- changes in seasonal timing;
- poleward range shifts;
- upslope movements;
- altered species interactions;
- local extinctions;
- redistribution of marine organisms;
- changing community composition.
Later research introduced concepts such as climate velocity and demonstrated that species distributions can follow moving climatic conditions.
Long-term resurveys of mountains and other ecosystems documented dramatic changes over periods of several decades.
Research also showed that tropical species may be highly vulnerable even where absolute warming is smaller because many already live close to their thermal limits.
During the 2010s and 2020s, increasingly large datasets, satellite observations, genomic techniques, global biodiversity monitoring networks, and improved climate models revealed that climate impacts extend from genes and individual organisms to entire ecosystems.
The scientific question has therefore shifted.
The question is no longer simply whether climate change affects biodiversity.
The increasingly important questions are how rapidly ecological change will occur, which species and ecosystems are most vulnerable, which places can serve as refuges, how much warming can be avoided, and which conservation strategies can preserve ecological function in a rapidly changing world.
Conservation Priorities
Evidence across the research suggests several broad priorities for protecting biodiversity under climate change.
First, limiting global warming remains essential. Conservation interventions become increasingly difficult as climatic change intensifies.
Second, existing ecosystems should be protected before they are lost. Intact forests, wetlands, grasslands, rivers, mangroves, coral reefs, and other ecosystems provide irreplaceable ecological functions.
Third, fragmented habitats should be reconnected so species can move as climates shift.
Fourth, climate refugia should be identified and protected.
Fifth, protected-area systems should incorporate future rather than only present climatic conditions.
Sixth, conservation should protect genetic as well as species and ecosystem diversity.
Seventh, other human pressures must also be reduced. Habitat destruction, pollution, invasive species, overexploitation, and climate change frequently act together.
Eighth, ecological restoration should emphasize diverse and resilient native ecosystems rather than simplified systems optimized for a single objective such as carbon storage.
Ninth, conservation planning should recognize ecological change rather than assuming historical ecosystems can always remain unchanged.
Finally, climate and biodiversity policy should be coordinated rather than pursued as separate environmental agendas.
Conclusion
Climate change is already altering life across the planet.
Species are moving toward cooler regions and higher elevations, populations are disappearing from parts of their historical ranges, seasonal biological events are shifting, and ecological communities are being reorganized. Mountains, rivers, forests, coral reefs, oceans, mangroves, and other ecosystems are experiencing combinations of gradual warming and increasingly severe extreme events.
The greatest risks arise when climate change interacts with habitat destruction, pollution, invasive species, overexploitation, and landscape fragmentation.
Yet biodiversity is also part of the response to climate change.
Diverse ecosystems can provide resilience, store carbon, regulate water, protect coastlines, support food systems, and sustain ecological functions under environmental stress.
Effective climate-era conservation therefore requires more than protecting isolated patches of habitat. It requires connected landscapes, climate refugia, adaptive protected areas, genetic conservation, ecosystem restoration, locally led stewardship, carefully designed nature-based solutions, and substantial reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions.
The accumulated evidence shows that climate change and biodiversity loss cannot be treated as separate problems. Protecting Earth's biological diversity is increasingly inseparable from stabilizing the climate, while limiting climate change is fundamental to preserving the diversity and functioning of life on Earth.
Recent Research and Emerging Findings
| David S. Schoeman et al. | Nature Reviews Biodiversity | 2026-08-26
Examines how climate-change scenarios used in biodiversity research can be made more relevant to conservation policy and decision-making.
| Rosannette Quesada Hidalgo | Smithsonian Magazine / STRI | 2026-08-25
Describes experiments showing that higher developmental temperatures can alter the iridescent wing scales of Morpho butterflies.
| Sara Hashemi | Smithsonian Magazine | 2026-08-07
Reports global evidence that many butterfly species are shifting their geographic ranges as climates warm.
| Shawan Chowdhury et al. | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2026-08-05
Compiles range-shift records for 1,758 butterfly species worldwide and finds that climate change and extreme weather are associated with most documented redistributions.
| UN Environment Programme | UNEP | 2026-07-24
Reviews evidence that mangrove losses have slowed in many regions and explains why protecting these biodiverse carbon-rich ecosystems matters for climate resilience.
| Claire Wright et al. | Nature Climate Change | 2026-07-22
Reviews how climate change creates ecological novelty through new climates, altered species combinations and changing ecosystem processes, challenging traditional conservation baselines.
| Global biodiversity experiment network | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2026-07-15
Finds that biodiversity can strongly support grassland productivity during extreme drought, especially in more arid systems, while forest responses differ.
| Pengdong Chen, Wei Huang & Evan Siemann | Nature Communications | 2026-07-04
Shows how climatic niches, geographic prevalence and evolutionary history jointly influence species' elevational shifts under warming.
| Nur Arafeh-Dalmau et al. | Trends in Ecology & Evolution | 2026-07-01
Synthesizes approaches for identifying marine climate refugia and incorporating them into climate-smart conservation.
| Kelvin Ngongolo et al. | Frontiers in Conservation Science | 2026-06-25
Examines community perceptions, anthropogenic pressures and climate-change risks affecting conservation of Tanzania's Magombera single-horned chameleon.
| Gopal Murali, Dirk N. Karger & John J. Wiens | Nature Climate Change | 2026-06-18
A global resurvey analysis finds climate-related local extinctions have so far been more frequent among temperate than tropical species.
| Jorge Avaria-Llautureo et al. | Nature Climate Change | 2026-05-19
Finds that rapid climate change is associated with range contraction and longer dispersal distances in seabirds, with severe future warming projected to contract ranges for most assessed species.
| Global intervention scenario research team | One Earth | 2026-05-15
Meta-analysis finds that many interventions benefit both climate and biodiversity, but climate-focused action alone is insufficient to reverse biodiversity loss.
| Terrestrial biodiversity research team | Trends in Ecology & Evolution | 2026-05
Discusses combined future effects of climate and land-use change on terrestrial vertebrate diversity and the need for transformative mitigation and land-use policy.
| Walter Andriuzzi | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2026-04-21
Highlights evidence that observed species range shifts can occur substantially faster than climatic-niche models predict, underscoring the need to validate forecasts with monitoring data.
| Xiaoye Yang et al. | Nature Climate Change | 2026-04-06
Projects how climate-driven wildfire exposure could intensify risks for thousands of already fire-vulnerable species.
| Md. Simul Bhuyan et al. | Ocean & Coastal Management | 2026
Reviews climate impacts on coral reefs and evaluates emerging resilience approaches including restoration, assisted evolution and protected areas.
| Global extreme-event exposure research team | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2026
Projects increasing exposure of terrestrial vertebrates to heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and floods, with multi-hazard exposure expanding sharply by late century.
| Biodiversity early-warning research team | Nature Climate Change | 2026
Develops a seasonal early-warning system that combines weather forecasts with species temperature limits to identify vertebrates at near-term risk from extreme heat.
| Climate-connectivity research team | Nature Climate Change | 2026
Projects that stronger warming will erode climate connectivity across much of the world's land surface, potentially isolating species from newly suitable habitat.
| Global vertebrate drought research team | Nature Communications | 2026
Shows that limiting warming substantially reduces projected drought exposure for threatened terrestrial vertebrates in global biodiversity hotspots.
| Reut Vardi et al. | Global Change Biology | 2025-12-09
Projects combined effects of extreme heat and land-use change on nearly 30,000 terrestrial vertebrates, showing sharply rising exposure under higher-emissions scenarios.
| Luiz A. Domeignoz-Horta et al. | U.S. Geological Survey | 2025-10-30
Explains feedbacks through which climate change accelerates biodiversity loss while biodiversity decline weakens carbon storage and can worsen warming.
| Climate-refugia research team | Journal of Environmental Management | 2025-10
Integrates biological mechanisms into species distribution models to identify multiple kinds of climate refugia and develop targeted adaptation strategies.
| Xu Mengzhi et al. | Frontiers in Climate | 2025-09-23
Reviews biodiversity adaptation strategies across regional, landscape and site scales.
| Protected-area and carbon research team | Science of the Total Environment | 2025-09-10
Assesses China's protected areas under future climate change, finding both biodiversity and carbon benefits but substantial remaining gaps requiring proactive prioritization.
| Hanna ten Brink | Global Change Biology | 2025-05-10
Models how environmental change can trigger cascading and potentially irreversible biodiversity loss in recently formed species flocks.
| John M. Drake et al. | Ecology Letters | 2025-05-08
Proposes two hypotheses for how increasing climate variability, not just shifts in mean conditions, may reshape species distributions across ecosystems.
| Biodiversity gap-analysis research team | Biological Conservation | 2025-05
Introduces a refined gap-analysis approach for identifying conservation priorities under climate change, demonstrated with amphibians in Southwest Asia.
| Edith J. Singini & Nompumelelo C. Baso | South African Journal of Botany | 2025-05
Examines how land-use change, invasive species and climate change jointly affect plant species across IUCN conservation categories in South Africa's Eastern Cape.
| Juan Jiang et al. | Nature Communications | 2025-03-20
Incorporates genetic load, genomic offset and species distribution modelling to identify Arabidopsis populations that may be especially vulnerable to future climate change.
| Coral reef conservation researchers | Nature Reviews Biodiversity | 2025
Reviews layered solutions needed to reduce local pressures, improve resilience and conserve tropical coral reefs under intensifying climate stress.
| Plant conservation researchers | Frontiers in Conservation Science | 2025
Introduces research on conserving plant diversity as climate change alters habitats, distributions and ecological processes.
| Global biodiversity research team | Nature / PMC | 2025
Synthesizes thousands of studies to compare how major human pressures, including climate change, alter biodiversity across ecosystems.
| Global butterfly biodiversity research team | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2025
Maps global butterfly diversity hotspots and projects major erosion of tropical mountain climate niches, raising concern that some mountain refugia could become climate traps.
| Protected-area climate-velocity research team | Global Environmental Change Advances | 2025
Projects that climate-zone shifts could reduce the effectiveness of many terrestrial protected areas by mid-to-late century and argues for climate-adaptive reserve planning.
| Xuede Dong et al. | Journal of Environmental Management | 2025
Projects differing climate vulnerability among Chinese plants and vertebrates and identifies areas of both high risk and new conservation opportunity.
| Threatened-species conservation researchers | Advances in Climate Change Research | 2025
Models climate-driven habitat loss, extinction risk, species turnover and conservation gaps for threatened species in China under multiple emissions scenarios.
| Climate-vulnerability research team | Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation | 2025
Proposes a low-cost framework for assessing climate vulnerability in poorly known species that are often omitted from conventional climate-risk analyses.
| Samuel Minev-Benzecry & Barnabas H. Daru | Nature Communications | 2024-11-02
Models how climate change could reorganize the world's floristic regions and reshape plant biogeography.
| Dexter Achu Mosoh et al. | Frontiers in Conservation Science | 2024-09-27
Reviews global-change pressures on plant diversity and strategies for preserving flora under climate change.
| Marine biodiversity researchers | Nature Communications | 2024-03-27
Projects when and where marine species will face thermal exposure or gain newly suitable habitat through 2100.
| Rachel Warren et al. | Climatic Change | 2024-02-29
Quantifies projected biodiversity losses in six countries at warming levels from 1.5°C to 4°C.
| Sarah R. Weiskopf et al. | NASA GISS / Nature Communications | 2024
Finds that biodiversity loss can reduce terrestrial carbon storage, creating a feedback between ecological decline and climate change.
Extinction Risk, Range Shifts, and Biodiversity Change
| John J. Wiens & Jeffery Zelinka | Global Change Biology | 2024-01-03
Reviews why estimates of climate-driven extinction vary widely and evaluates the assumptions behind projected species losses.
| Andrew J. Suggitt et al. | Nature Communications | 2023-10-30
Combines decades of land-use data and warming trends to explain range changes across more than a thousand British species.
| Climate redistribution review team | Environmental Evidence | 2023
Systematically reviews empirical support for expected climate-driven shifts toward higher latitudes, elevations and depths.
| David Jaureguiberry et al. | Science Advances / PMC | 2022
Global synthesis comparing the relative importance of land-use change, exploitation, pollution, climate change and invasive species as direct biodiversity drivers.
| Biodiversity-ecosystem functioning research team | Global Change Biology / PMC | 2022
Meta-analysis showing that biodiversity can strengthen ecosystem functioning under warming, drought and other environmental stresses.
| Sarahi Nunez & Rob Alkemade | Biodiversity and Conservation | 2021-08-24
Examines mechanisms through which climate and land-use change interact to affect biodiversity.
| Climate vulnerability assessment researchers | Landscape Ecology | 2021-06-13
Systematic review of how land-use change is incorporated into climate-change vulnerability assessments for biodiversity.
| Biodiversity modelling researchers | Nature Communications | 2020
Reconstructs historical range losses and projects future range changes for mammals, birds and amphibians under climate and land-use change.
| Sarahi Nunez et al. | Climatic Change | 2019-05-22
Meta-analysis indicating that biodiversity losses increase substantially between 1°C and 2°C of warming.
| Rachel Warren et al. | Climatic Change | 2018-03-14
Evaluates what Paris Agreement temperature limits imply for globally significant biodiversity areas.
| John J. Wiens | PLOS Biology | 2016-12-08
Finds that climate-related local extinctions were already widespread across surveyed plant and animal species.
| Luke O. Frishkoff et al. | Ecology Letters | 2016
Shows that climate change and habitat conversion can favor many of the same generalist species while disadvantaging sensitive forest species.
| Mark C. Urban | Science | 2015-05-01
Meta-analysis showing that extinction risk rises with warming and could threaten a substantial fraction of species under high-emissions futures.
| Barry W. Brook & Damien A. Fordham | F1000Research / PMC | 2015
Reviews prominent research themes and biases in the study of climate change impacts on biodiversity.
| Michelle D. Staudinger et al. | U.S. Geological Survey | 2013-11-01
Synthesizes observed and projected U.S. biodiversity responses including range shifts, phenology changes and altered species interactions.
| Wendy B. Foden et al. | PLOS ONE | 2013-06-12
Uses biological traits to identify birds, amphibians and corals that may be especially vulnerable to climate change.
| John J. Wiens | Proceedings of the Royal Society B / PMC | 2013
Reviews the proximate ecological mechanisms through which climate change can cause population loss and extinction.
| I-Ching Chen et al. | Science | 2011-08-19
Meta-analysis documenting rapid poleward and upslope range shifts associated with warming.
| Chris D. Thomas et al. | Nature | 2004-01-08
Landmark study estimating large climate-driven extinction commitments under mid-century warming scenarios.
Ecosystems: Mountains, Freshwater, Oceans, Forests, and Coasts
| Freshwater climate-risk research team | Nature Climate Change | 2026-08-24
Projects abrupt thermal exposure and increasing thermal fragmentation for thousands of freshwater fish species as river temperatures rise.
| Lotta Schultz et al. | Nature Communications | 2026-07-03
Maps alpine biodiversity across 32 mountain ranges and shows that hotspots vary strongly among regions and taxa, complicating global conservation prioritization.
| Benjamin G. Freeman et al. | Nature Reviews Biodiversity | 2026-05-25
Reviews evidence for vulnerability and resilience of mountain biodiversity, emphasizing heightened risks for tropical and high-elevation species under modern warming.
| Eulogio Chacón-Moreno et al. | Frontiers in Forests and Global Change | 2026-04-21
Presents a climate-resilient forest planning framework that integrates species distributions, genetic adaptation, future climate scenarios and uncertainty for restoration decisions.
| Jean Roach et al. | Frontiers in Forests and Global Change | 2026-04-15
Evaluates short-term carbon, biodiversity and forest-structure responses to a fire-risk-reduction treatment in interior British Columbia.
| Jonathan D. Tonkin et al. | Nature Reviews Biodiversity | 2026-02-19
Reviews how floods, droughts and heatwaves are reshaping river biodiversity and how conservation can address increasingly frequent climate extremes.
| Alejandro de la Fuente et al. | Nature Climate Change | 2026-02-09
Argues that steep mountain climate gradients make mountain systems powerful natural laboratories for understanding mechanisms of species responses to warming.
| Riverine fish stability research team | Nature Communications | 2026
Finds that fish biodiversity and habitat complexity can buffer destabilizing effects of human pressures across river basins.
| Nick Pepin et al. | Nature Reviews Earth & Environment | 2025-11-25
Reviews elevation-dependent climate change in mountain environments and its implications for snow, water, ecosystems and biodiversity.
| Sarah Hülsen et al. | Communications Earth & Environment | 2025-04-05
Projects that sea-level rise and changing tropical cyclone regimes threaten mangroves, biodiversity and ecosystem services including coastal protection and carbon storage.
| Roberta Piscia et al. | Water | 2025-03-06
Uses long-term lake data to examine how warming and thermal stratification influence the ecological success of a zooplankton species in Lake Maggiore.
| Pavithra Rangani Wijenayake et al. | Frontiers in Forests and Global Change | 2025-01-10
Examines changes in forest ecosystem stability under climate change in a temperate landscape and implications for forest management.
| Freshwater ecosystem researchers | Desalination and Water Treatment | 2025-01-01
Reviews climate-change implications for freshwater ecosystems, aquatic species and biodiversity.
| Stephanie L. Rumschlag et al. | Nature | 2025
Long-term U.S. monitoring shows divergent fish biodiversity trends in cold and warm streams, with climate and species introductions contributing to community change.
| Duncan J. Graham et al. | Nature Climate Change | 2025
Projects declining dissolved oxygen and increasing hypoxia in rivers as climate warming raises water temperatures, threatening freshwater ecosystem functioning.
| Global river stressor research team | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2025
Synthesizes more than a thousand river stressor-response relationships, identifying salinity, oxygen depletion, sediment and warming as important biodiversity pressures.
| Alexander C. Ferreira et al. | Diversity | 2024-07-19
Reviews mangrove biodiversity and identifies functional groups at risk from climate-induced disruption, emphasizing interactions with local human pressures.
| Arshad Ali | Frontiers in Forests and Global Change | 2024-01-22
Argues that planted forests designed for multiple species and functions can better address biodiversity, ecosystem resilience and climate challenges than simplified plantations.
| Tim R. McClanahan et al. | Conservation Biology | 2024
Argues that coral conservation needs multiple kinds of climate refugia rather than reliance on a single heat-stress metric.
| Mountain climate-velocity research team | Nature | 2024
Maps vertical climate velocities across global mountains to assess whether species can track shifting temperatures along elevation gradients.
| Freshwater phylogeography research team | Heredity | 2024
Shows how long-term climatic stability shaped divergent freshwater fish lineages in southwestern Australia and how future warming may contract their ranges.
| Forest phenology research team | Nature Climate Change | 2024
Finds that greater tree diversity can buffer the temperature sensitivity of spring leaf unfolding, with implications for forest responses and carbon uptake.
| Global biodiversity time-series research team | Nature | 2024
Shows that faster local warming or cooling is associated with faster turnover in species composition across marine, freshwater and terrestrial communities.
| Barnabas H. Daru & Brianna M. Rock | Nature Plants | 2023-06-19
Projects global reorganization of seagrass communities under climate change, including shifts in range size, endemism and conservation coverage.
| Antonella Carosi | Water | 2022-12-05
Introduces studies on how warming, altered flows, alien species and other stressors affect freshwater biodiversity.
| UN Environment Programme | UNEP | 2022-06-21
Explains why rainforest loss simultaneously threatens biodiversity, carbon storage, rainfall regulation and human livelihoods.
| Freshwater conservation researchers | Environmental Research | 2022
Reviews climate-related and other major threats to freshwater biodiversity and discusses conservation strategies.
| Western Indian Ocean research team | One Earth | 2022
Finds climate change may erode biodiversity and socioeconomic benefits provided by tropical coastal protected areas in the Western Indian Ocean.
| Marine heatwave modelling team | Nature Climate Change | 2022
Projects persistent increases in marine heatwave intensity and duration across many large marine ecosystems important to fisheries and biodiversity.
| European Commission | Science for Environment Policy | 2021-12-02
Reviews how European forests can support biodiversity, carbon storage and climate adaptation while facing growing climate pressures.
| Freshwater biodiversity researchers | Nature Communications | 2021
Projects exposure of roughly 11,500 riverine fish species to future water-temperature and flow extremes.
| Laura H. Antão et al. | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2020-05-04
Analyzes more than 21,000 biodiversity time series and finds especially strong coupling between warming and community restructuring in temperate marine systems.
| Nicholas A. J. Graham et al. | Nature Communications | 2020-04-24
Examines how repeated climate disturbances change the ecological role and management value of coral reef marine reserves.
| UN Environment Programme | UNEP | 2020-01-16
Connects worsening wildfires and marine heat waves with biodiversity loss and ecosystem instability.
| Deep-ocean biodiversity researchers | Nature Climate Change | 2020
Shows that deep-ocean biodiversity can face high climate velocities even where absolute warming is slower than at the surface.
| Sarah R. Weiskopf et al. | NOAA Repository / Science of the Total Environment | 2020
Assesses U.S. climate-change impacts on biodiversity, ecosystems, ecosystem services and natural-resource management.
| Sarah Gibbens | National Geographic | 2019-03-04
Explains how increasingly frequent marine heat waves can cause rapid losses of corals, kelp, seagrasses and associated biodiversity.
| African freshwater fish researchers | Biological Conservation | 2019
Trait-based analysis assessing the climate vulnerability of most described African freshwater fish species.
| Dan A. Smale et al. | Nature Climate Change | 2019
Shows that marine heatwaves threaten biodiversity and ecosystem services by damaging foundation species such as corals, kelps and seagrasses.
| Coral reef management researchers | Ecology and Evolution / PMC | 2018
Reviews climate impacts on coral reefs and argues for ecosystem-based, resilience-oriented management.
| Freshwater ecology researchers | Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics | 2017-11-02
Reviews how altered temperature and hydrology may affect freshwater organisms, distributions and biodiversity.
| Andrew S. Hoey et al. | Diversity | 2016-05-18
Reviews advances in understanding climate-change impacts on coral reef organisms and ecosystem processes.
| Freshwater conservation researchers | Biological Conservation | 2016
Uses decision modelling to prioritize restoration and land-management actions under combined climate and land-cover change.
| Kenneth R. N. Anthony | Annual Review of Environment and Resources | 2016
Reviews coral reef risks from warming and ocean acidification and assesses management and policy options.
| Jorge García Molinos et al. | Nature Climate Change | 2015-08-31
Uses climate velocity to project global redistribution of marine biodiversity.
Conservation, Protected Areas, Refugia, Adaptation, and Nature-Based Solutions
| Will McCarry | Conservation International | 2026-07-08
Reports research showing that climate change threatens thousands of Amazon plant species used by Indigenous peoples, placing both biodiversity and cultural knowledge at risk.
| Conservation International | Conservation International | 2026-06-16
Summarizes global evidence that Indigenous cultural practices and governance can protect biodiversity-rich ecosystems and climate-relevant carbon stocks.
| Nature-Based Solutions review team | Nature-Based Solutions | 2026-06
Systematic review identifies both climate and biodiversity benefits of nature-based solutions while warning about trade-offs from poorly designed interventions.
| Maksim Lavrik | Climate Law | 2026-04-15
Explores how climate-law instruments could support assisted species migration and biodiversity adaptation.
| International Union for Conservation of Nature | IUCN | 2026-04-09
Reports international measures to protect migratory corridors from fragmentation, infrastructure and climate-related threats.
| International Union for Conservation of Nature | IUCN | 2025-12
Summarizes how climate change affects species through habitat loss, extreme events, sea-level rise and ecological disruption, and outlines conservation responses.
| Abbey E. Camaclang et al. | Ecological Solutions and Evidence | 2025-11-02
Uses priority threat management to compare conservation investments and estimate biodiversity persistence alongside avoided emissions and carbon sequestration benefits.
| International Union for Conservation of Nature | IUCN | 2025-09-17
Examines how renewable-energy expansion can reduce emissions while still creating biodiversity risks if projects are poorly located or designed.
| Private-land conservation research team | Biological Conservation | 2025-08
Finds that many private-land conservation policies inadequately incorporate climate change and calls for clearer adaptation guidance and resilience-focused management.
| Alexis Rutschmann et al. | Global Change Biology | 2025-06-11
Develops a robust conservation-planning approach that stress-tests protected-area strategies against uncertainty in climate-driven species distribution forecasts.
| Radwa Salah et al. | Diversity | 2025-04-12
Projects contrasting responses of seven giant Lobelia species in East Africa, with high-elevation species facing especially severe habitat contraction.
| Charlie J. Gardner & James M. Bullock | Journal of Applied Ecology | 2025-03-26
Reassesses assisted colonization as a conservation response when species cannot naturally track rapidly shifting climates through fragmented landscapes.
| Sun Wook Kim et al. | Nature Reviews Biodiversity | 2025
Reviews protected-area strategies that account for future habitat, climate refugia, connectivity and adaptive potential.
| Danilo Urzedo et al. | People and Nature | 2024-11-29
Argues for conservation data systems that move beyond carbon accounting to include multiple biodiversity and social outcomes.
| Yangtze conservation planning research team | Global Ecology and Conservation | 2024-11
Maps areas where biodiversity, climate exposure and carbon storage overlap in China's Middle and Lower Yangtze River Basin to guide integrated priorities.
| Yvonne M. Buckley et al. | Journal of Ecology | 2024-10-24
Examines how plant ecology can improve nature-based solutions designed to deliver benefits for people, biodiversity and climate mitigation or adaptation.
| Christopher D. Barratt et al. | Methods in Ecology and Evolution | 2024-10-07
Introduces a toolbox combining ecological, environmental and genomic information for population-level climate vulnerability assessment.
| Ah-Young Kim, Who-Seung Lee & Yowhan Son | Diversity | 2024-08-19
Examines climate-biodiversity interactions from a material-cycle and carbon-cycle perspective, emphasizing feedbacks between ecological change and biogeochemical processes.
| Idil Boran & Nathalie Pettorelli | Journal of Applied Ecology | 2024-07-22
Calls for a joint work programme linking the Paris Agreement and Global Biodiversity Framework to improve coordination across climate, nature and human well-being.
| International Union for Conservation of Nature | IUCN | 2024-06-24
Explores the role of biodiversity in climate resilience and adaptation through nature-based solutions and locally led conservation examples.
| Mark C. Urban et al. | Nature Climate Change | 2024-04-26
Reviews interactions between urbanization and climate change and how their combined effects will reshape biodiversity in cities and surrounding landscapes.
| Protected-area adaptation research team | Biological Conservation | 2024-01
Reviews documented climate-adaptation actions in protected areas and finds that effectiveness is often poorly measured, despite growing need for implementation.
| Gunnar Keppel et al. | Trends in Ecology & Evolution | 2024
Provides a management framework for using climate-change refugia to reduce extinction risk.
| João H. C. Cabral et al. | People and Nature | 2024
Explains why biodiversity models should incorporate climate-driven land-use responses rather than treating land use and climate as independent pressures.
| Global conservation expert survey team | Global Environmental Change | 2023-12
Surveys expert preferences for conservation under climate change and finds support for several non-traditional interventions alongside caution about uncertain risks.
| IUCN Commission Chairs | IUCN | 2023-11-28
Argues that climate change and biodiversity loss are mutually reinforcing crises that require coordinated policy and conservation action.
| Climate Adaptation Science Centers | U.S. Geological Survey | 2023-04-06
Describes a North American assessment of the two-way relationships between climate change, biodiversity and conservation policy.
| Assisted migration research team | Biological Conservation | 2023
Maps real-world applications of assisted migration as a climate adaptation tactic for conservation.
| Global herpetofauna conservation research team | Nature Communications | 2023
Assesses more than 14,000 amphibian and reptile species and finds protected areas can provide important climate refuges but leave major geographic gaps.
| Nature Futures Framework researchers | Sustainability Science | 2022-09-21
Discusses the Nature Futures Framework as a tool for adaptive biodiversity decision-making under climate change.
| Conservation synthesis team | Global Change Biology / PMC | 2022
Shows that many actions aimed at halting biodiversity loss also provide climate-mitigation benefits.
| Northern biodiversity research team | Nature Climate Change | 2022
Uses four decades of observations across many taxa to show that warming reshuffles northern communities within species' climatic niches.
| International Union for Conservation of Nature | IUCN | 2022
Explains how protected and conserved areas can jointly support biodiversity conservation, carbon storage and climate mitigation.
| Nur Arafeh-Dalmau et al. | Methods in Ecology and Evolution | 2021-07-22
Shows how climate velocity can be incorporated into networks of marine protected areas.
| Conservation researchers | Frontiers in Conservation Science | 2021
Argues that conservation practice must increasingly focus on maintaining ecological persistence and function under rapid climate change.
| Climate-transient-community researchers | Biodiversity and Conservation | 2021
Examines conservation challenges created by communities whose species composition continuously changes as climate shifts.
| Climate Adaptation Science Centers | U.S. Geological Survey | 2020-12-01
Summarizes research on practical management recommendations for helping wildlife adapt to climate change.
| Olivia E. LeDee et al. | U.S. Geological Survey | 2020-10-30
Reviews more than a thousand publications to assess the state of climate-adaptation recommendations for wildlife management.
| Toni Lyn Morelli et al. | Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment / PMC | 2020
Develops the concept of climate-change refugia as relatively buffered places that can preserve biodiversity and ecosystem function.
| Climate refugia researchers | Biological Conservation | 2020
Evaluates protected areas as potential refugia using climate velocity and conservation-priority metrics.
| Refugia conservation researchers | Biological Conservation | 2020
Reviews evidence that rocky, montane and riparian environments can function as refuges from climate and other threats.
| Brett R. Scheffers & Gretta Pecl | Nature Climate Change | 2019-07-08
Examines governance choices as climate-driven species redistribution crosses ecological and political boundaries.
| Michael T. Burrows et al. | Trends in Ecology & Evolution | 2018
Reviews how climate velocity can guide conservation planning, protected areas and connectivity.
| H. Resit Akçakaya et al. | Nature Climate Change | 2014-11-26
Discusses how Red List assessments and timely adaptation actions can help prevent climate-related species extinctions.
| Conservation planning researchers | Biodiversity and Conservation | 2012
Reviews ways to incorporate climate change, refugia and future habitat shifts into systematic conservation planning.
| Emma Marris | Nature Climate Change | 2008-08-28
Early examination of assisted migration as a controversial strategy for species unable to move fast enough under climate change.
Policy, Synergies, and Public-Facing Overviews
| UN Environment Programme | UNEP | 2026-02-18
Collects current examples of ecosystem restoration and biodiversity protection, including projects designed to strengthen climate resilience.
| Cassidy Randall | National Geographic | 2025-11-06
Profiles regenerative farming practices that rebuild biodiversity and improve resilience to climate stresses in Brazil.
| European Commission | Climate Action | 2025
Explains climate impacts on biodiversity, forests, wetlands, agriculture and other ecological systems in Europe.
| Smithsonian Magazine | Smithsonian Magazine | 2025
Explores how preserving traditional crop diversity may strengthen food systems against rapid climate change.
| Sona Prakash & Aude Neuville | European Commission Joint Research Centre | 2024-03-21
Provides a policy-oriented synthesis of links among biodiversity, climate change and energy systems.
| Angela Colbert / NASA Science Editorial Team | NASA Science | 2023-05-22
Explains how satellite observations help scientists track biodiversity change and climate-driven ecosystem shifts worldwide.
| European Commission Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity | Knowledge4Policy | 2023-04-21
Summarizes feedbacks, synergies and trade-offs among biodiversity, climate change and the energy transition.
| UN Environment Programme | UNEP | 2022-11-15
Explains how forests, wetlands, oceans and other ecosystems contribute to climate mitigation, adaptation and biodiversity protection.
| UN Environment Programme | UNEP | 2022-10-10
Accessible overview of why biodiversity matters, how climate change threatens it and how nature-based solutions can address both crises.
| Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change | IPCC | 2022-02-27
Major global assessment of climate impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, including extensive evidence on ecosystems and biodiversity.
| Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change | IPCC | 2022
Explains how increasing levels of warming affect nature, ecosystem services and biodiversity.
| IPBES & IPCC workshop authors | IPBES-IPCC | 2021-06-10
Joint scientific workshop report on the interconnections between biodiversity loss and climate change and the need for integrated solutions.
| OECD | Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development | 2021
Reviews OECD work on biodiversity and highlights the need to align biodiversity policy with climate action.
| UN Environment Programme | UNEP | 2020-11-13
Reports research showing that strategically conserving land can protect threatened species while safeguarding large carbon stocks.
| Kennedy Warne | National Geographic | 2020-08-13
Examines how strongly protected ocean areas can simultaneously support biodiversity, fisheries and climate goals.
| Jenny Howard | National Geographic | 2019-08-19
Explores evidence that some animals can adjust behavior or breeding timing under warming but may not adapt fast enough to keep pace.
| UN Environment Programme | UNEP | 2016-05-22
Argues for integrating biodiversity protection into sustainable-development and climate policy following the Paris Agreement.
| Justin Catanoso | National Geographic | 2013-09-17
Reports on tropical plant species moving upslope in the Andes as temperatures rise.
| European Environment Agency | EEA | 2010-03-22
Public-facing report connecting biodiversity, climate change and human dependence on functioning ecosystems.
| Convention on Biological Diversity / UNEP | CBD | 2010
Explains two-way links between climate and biodiversity and the role of healthy ecosystems in mitigation and adaptation.
Foundational Evidence and Long-Term Climate–Biodiversity Studies
| Alex L. Pigot et al. | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2023-05-18
Projects that many species could experience abrupt expansion of dangerous thermal exposure across their ranges within a single decade.
| Christopher H. Trisos, Cory Merow & Alex L. Pigot | Nature | 2020-04-08
Projects that ecological communities can face abrupt exposure to unprecedented climate conditions, with risks accelerating sharply as global warming increases.
| Cristian Román-Palacios & John J. Wiens | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 2020
Combines observed local extinctions with climate data to project species losses and identify warming-related factors associated with persistence.
| Gretta T. Pecl et al. | Science | 2017-03-31
Synthesizes global redistribution of species under climate change and the ecological, economic and governance consequences of species moving into new regions.
| Brett R. Scheffers et al. | Science | 2016-11-11
Reviews observed climate-change impacts from genes and physiology through species, communities, ecosystems and human systems.
| Jorge García Molinos et al. | Nature | 2014-02-13
Uses climate trajectories to show how coastlines, climate sinks and other geographic constraints can limit species' ability to track shifting climates.
| Malin L. Pinsky et al. | Science | 2013-09-13
Shows that North American marine taxa closely track local climate velocities, helping explain differences in the direction and speed of observed range shifts.
| Abigail E. Cahill et al. | Proceedings of the Royal Society B | 2013-01-07
Reviews demonstrated mechanisms of climate-related local extinction and finds that altered species interactions can be as important as direct heat tolerance.
| Jennifer M. Sunday, Amanda E. Bates & Nicholas K. Dulvy | Nature Climate Change | 2012-05-27
Compares thermal tolerances with species ranges and explains why marine ectotherms may track warming differently from terrestrial ectotherms.
| Thomas E. Martin & John L. Maron | Nature Climate Change | 2012
Shows how climate-driven changes in animal–plant interactions can alter bird and plant communities, illustrating indirect pathways of biodiversity change.
| Céline Bellard et al. | Ecology Letters | 2012
Reviews potential climate-change impacts across levels of biological organization and the major modelling approaches used to project future biodiversity change.
| Michael T. Burrows et al. | Science | 2011-11-04
Compares climate velocity and seasonal shifts across marine and terrestrial systems, showing complex spatial patterns of biological tracking pressure.
| Barry Sinervo et al. | Science | 2010-05-14
Combines field resurveys and physiological modelling to document climate-linked local lizard extinctions and project further global diversity losses.
| Scott R. Loarie et al. | Nature | 2009-12-24
Introduces climate-change velocity as a measure of how rapidly organisms may need to move to remain within similar temperature conditions.
| Robert K. Colwell et al. | Science | 2008-10-10
Warns that tropical warming can drive elevational range shifts, lowland biotic attrition and mountaintop losses because tropical species have limited cooler habitat options.
| Craig Moritz et al. | Science | 2008-10-10
A century-scale Yosemite resurvey finds large upward shifts in small-mammal elevational limits and contractions among high-elevation species.
| Anne E. Kelly & Michael L. Goulden | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 2008-08-12
Documents rapid upslope movement of dominant plant distributions in Southern California during a period of regional warming.
| Ove Hoegh-Guldberg et al. | Science | 2008-07-18
Proposes assisted colonization as a possible response when rapid climate change outpaces species' ability to migrate naturally.
| Joshua J. Tewksbury, Raymond B. Huey & Curtis A. Deutsch | Science | 2008-05-09
Explains why tropical ectotherms living close to thermal limits can be especially vulnerable to relatively small increases in temperature.
| Curtis A. Deutsch et al. | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 2008-05-06
Uses thermal-performance curves to show that warming may reduce fitness most strongly for tropical ectotherms despite larger absolute warming at high latitudes.
Projects the emergence of novel climates and disappearance of some existing climate combinations, with major implications for species assemblages and conservation.
| J. Alan Pounds et al. | Nature | 2006-01-12
Links widespread tropical amphibian losses to interactions between warming and chytrid disease, illustrating how climate can affect biodiversity indirectly through pathogens.
| Terry L. Root et al. | Nature | 2003-01-02
Meta-analysis finds a consistent global-warming fingerprint in changes to the timing, distribution and biology of wild plants and animals.
| Camille Parmesan & Gary Yohe | Nature | 2003-01-02
Landmark global synthesis identifies coherent poleward, upslope and phenological shifts across more than 1,700 species consistent with climate change.
| Gian-Reto Walther et al. | Nature | 2002-03-28
Classic review showing that ecological responses to recent climate change were already visible across species, communities and ecosystems from polar to tropical regions.
