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PREDICTING CLIMATE-INDUCED GEOGRAPHIC RANGE SHIFTS FOR MAMMALS IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
Citation:
LAWLER, J. PREDICTING CLIMATE-INDUCED GEOGRAPHIC RANGE SHIFTS FOR MAMMALS IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE. Presented at Joint Annual Meeting of the Society for Northwestern Vertebrate Biology and the Oregon Chapter of the Wildlife Society, Corvallis, OR, February 22 - 25, 2005.
Description:
In order to manage wildlife and conserve biodiversity, it is critical that we understand the potential impacts of climate change on species distributions. I used six different modeling approaches to predict the future distributions of 100 mammal species in the western hemisphere under a doubling of atmospheric CO2 over 100 years. The most accurate models predicted range contractions for most species. The models predicted the complete elimination of the ranges of some species and predicted extensive range expansions for others. The variability in predictions across modeling approaches indicates the importance of model selection and the impact of model accuracy on future predictions.