News & Events

Conserving habitat not enough to help species cope with climate change

11.10.2017

New research finds that habitat-based conservation strategies don’t adequately compensate for the range that species in three groups stand to lose due to climate change.

 

The team of scientists around Johannes Wessely, Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research, looked at the effects of climate change on 51 species of grasshoppers, butterflies and vascular plants living in central Europe. Habitat-based conservation can provide a lifeline, but their model predicts that it won’t be enough to prevent some species from regional extinction. [read more]

Johannes Wessely, Karl Hülber, Andreas Gattringer, Michael Kuttner, Dietmar Moser, Wolfgang Rabitsch, Stefan Schindler, Stefan Dullinger und Franz Essl: Habitat-based conservation strategies cannot compensate for climate change-induced range loss. Nature Climate Change. doi: 10.1038/NCLIMATE3414.

(c) Dietmar Moser