Refugium (population biology)
In biology, a refugium (plural: refugia) is a location which supports an isolated or
Present examples of refugial animal species are the
For plants,
In
More recently, refugia has been used to refer to areas that could offer relative climate stability in the face of modern climate change.[9]
Speciation
As an example of a locale refugia study,
Scholars have since expanded the idea of this mode of speciation and used it to explain population patterns in other areas of the world, such as
Simple environment examples of temperature
One can provide a simple explanation of refugia involving core temperatures and exposure to sunlight. In the
A concept not often referenced is that of "sweepstakes colonization":[11][12] when a dramatic ecological event occurs, for example a meteor strike, and global, multiyear effects occur. The sweepstake-winning species happens to already be living in a fortunate site, and their environment is rendered even more advantageous, as opposed to the "losing" species, which immediately fails to reproduce.[11][12]
Past climate change refugia
Ecological understanding and geographic identification of climate refugia that remained significant strongholds for plant and animal survival during the extremes of past cooling and warming episodes largely pertain to the Quaternary glaciation cycles during the past several million years, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. A number of defining characteristics of past refugia are prevalent, including "an area where distinct genetic lineages have persisted through a series of Tertiary or Quaternary climate fluctuations owing to special, buffering environmental characteristics", "a geographical region that a species inhabits during the period of a glacial/interglacial cycle that represents the species' maximum contraction in geographical range," and "areas where local populations of a species can persist through periods of unfavorable regional climate."[13]
Future climate change refugia
In systematic conservation planning, the term refugium has been used to define areas that could be used in protected area development to protect species from climate change.[9] The term has been used alternatively to refer to areas with stable habitats or stable climates.[9] More specifically, the term in situ refugium is used to refer to areas that will allow species that exist in an area to remain there even as conditions change, whereas ex situ refugium refers to an area into which species distributions can move to in response to climate change.[9] Sites that offer in situ refugia are also called resilient sites in which species will continue to have what they need to survive even as climate changes.[14]
One study found with downscaled climate models that areas near the coast are predicted to experience overall less warming than areas toward the interior of the US State of Washington.[15] Other research has found that old-growth forests are particularly insulated from climatic changes due to evaporative cooling effects from evapotranspiration and their ability to retain moisture.[16] The same study found that such effects in the Pacific Northwest would create important refugia for bird species. A review of refugia-focused conservation strategy in the Klamath-Siskiyou Ecoregion found that, in addition to old-growth forest, the northern aspects of hillslopes and deep gorges would provide relatively cool areas for wildlife and seeps or bogs surrounded by mature and old-growth forests would continue to supply moisture even as water availability decreases.[17]
Beginning in 2010 the concept of geodiversity (a term used previously in efforts to preserve scientifically important geological features) entered into the literature of conservation biologists as a potential way to identify climate change refugia and as a surrogate (in other words, a proxy used when planning for protected areas) for biodiversity.[18][19][20] While the language to describe this mode of conservation planning hadn't fully developed until recently, the use of geophysical diversity in conservation planning goes back at least as far as the work by Hunter and others in 1988,[21] and Richard Cowling and his colleagues in South Africa also used "spatial features" as surrogates for ecological processes in establishing conservation areas in the late 1990s and early 2000s.[22][23] The most recent efforts have used the idea of land facets (also referred to as geophysical settings, enduring features, or geophysical stages[14]), which are unique combinations of topographical features (such as slope steepness, slope direction, and elevation) and soil composition, to quantify physical features.[19] The density of these facets, in turn, is used as a measure of geodiversity.[20][14] Because geodiversity has been shown to be correlated with biodiversity,[2] even as species move in response to climate change, protected areas with high geodiversity may continue to protect biodiversity as niches get filled by the influx of species from neighboring areas.[14] Highly geodiverse protected areas may also allow for the movement of species within the area from one land facet or elevation to another.[14]
Conservation scientists, however, emphasize that the use of refugia to plan for climate change is not a substitute for fine-scale (more localized) and traditional approaches to conservation, as individual species and ecosystems will need to be protected where they exist in the present.[2][24] They also emphasize that responding to climate change in conservation is not a substitute for actually limiting the causes of climate change.[2]
See also
- Biogeography
- Drought refuge
- Genetic drift
- Glacial relict
- Last Glacial Maximum refugia
- Population genetics
- Refuge (ecology)
- Refugium (fishkeeping)[25]
- Sky island
- Zomia (geography)
- Examples of refugia
Notes
- S2CID 131220626. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2020-02-15.
- ^ S2CID 154368627.
- PMID 11326089.
- .
- .
- S2CID 228929332.
- S2CID 234841035.
- .
- ^ S2CID 55909358.
- .
- ^ S2CID 13971431.
- ^ a b Penny ND, Penny FR (10 April 2001). "Gulf of Guinea Islands Biodiversity Project". California Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 26 April 2016.
- PMID 30367062.
- ^ a b c d e "Climate Change Resilience in the Pacific Northwest". conservationgateway.org. Retrieved 2019-03-19.
- ^ "Washington Wildlife Habitat Connectivity Working Group". Retrieved 2019-03-19.
- .
- S2CID 59069490.
- PMID 20644646.
- ^ S2CID 11964364.
- ^ S2CID 5065593.
- .
- S2CID 86287053.
- .
- S2CID 3797951.
- ^ "Unepscs.org". Refugia.unepscs.org. Retrieved 2012-03-12.
References
- Coyne JA, Orr HA (2004). Speciation. Sunderland: Sinauer Associates, Inc. ISBN 978-0-87893-091-3.
- Haffer J (July 1969). "Speciation in amazonian forest birds". Science. 165 (3889): 131–7. PMID 17834730.
- Leonard N, Hogan CM (2011). "Refugia". In Mcginley M, Cleveland CJ (eds.). Encyclopedia of Earth. Washington DC: National Council for Science and the Environment.