Mountains are centers of biodiversity, endemism, and threatened species. Evidence of upward elevational shifts in species distributions with increasing temperatures is accumulating, but the effects of precipitation changes are less often assessed. Here we model the potential impact of temperature and precipitation changes over the next 100 years on 16,848 vertebrate species distributed along 156 elevational gradients for a range of climate models.

Results/Conclusions

Average per-species local extinction risks due to warming alone are relatively low among vertebrate groups (0.4–7%) and montane regions (3–6%), but risks increase sharply when changes in precipitation are also considered (31–63% for strict bioclimatic models, 5–45% for flexible models). Realistic assessment of risks urgently requires better regional climate models and more research on the effects of changes in precipitation on montane distributions.