Reserves help maintain biodiversity by providing fixed areas of protected land that offer species refuge from anthropogenic threats such as habitat loss. Climate change is expected to cause shifts in species distributions resulting in changes in the flora and fauna of reserves. Dynamic range shifts over static reserve boundaries may cause some species to lose protection as they migrate out of reserves. Due to the northern spatial bias of current reserve networks, reserves are likely to experience higher levels of climatic changes compared to the global average, thus exacerbating the threat of climate change to currently protected biodiversity.  Here, we assess the potential magnitude of climate-driven changes in mammalian diversity in the existing reserve network of North and South America. We used projected-future ranges of 525 mammals generated by existing bioclimatic models to determine future potential-species distributions in the face of climate change.  To improve bioclimatic model projections, we limited modeled range-shifts to species-specific dispersal abilities. The dispersal models incorporated body mass, diet type, and the period of time between successive generations to investigate the potential for species to track changes in their climatic niches.   

Results/Conclusions

We assessed the overall mammalian-turnover in the reserve network as well as projected changes to specific groups of reserves.  Preliminary results for some of the larger reserves in the United States indicate potential turnover in vertebrate fauna ranging from 8% to 61% depending on the location of the reserve.