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ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES / ECOLOGY
Modeled regional climate change and California endemic oak ranges
*Department of Earth Sciences and Environmental Studies Department, University of California, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064
Edited by Christopher B. Field, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Stanford, CA and approved September 20, 2005 (received for review February 23, 2005)
In the coming century, anthropogenic climate change will threaten the persistence of restricted endemic species, complicating conservation planning. Although most efforts to quantify potential shifts in species' ranges use global climate model (GCM) output, regional climate model (RCM) output may be better suited to predicting shifts by restricted species, particularly in regions with complex topography or other regionally important climate-forcing factors. Using a RCM-based future climate scenario, we found that potential ranges of two California endemic oaks, Quercus douglasii and Quercus lobata, shrink considerably (to 59% and 54% of modern potential range sizes, respectively) and shift northward. This result is markedly different from that obtained by using a comparable GCM-based scenario, under which these species retain 81% and 73% of their modern potential range sizes, respectively. The difference between RCM- and GCM-based scenarios is due to greater warming and larger precipitation decreases during the growing season predicted by the RCM in these species' potential ranges. Based on the modeled regional climate change, <50% of protected land area currently containing these species is expected to contain them under a future midrange "business-as-usual" path of greenhouse gas emissions.
Quercus douglasii | species range displacement | Quercus lobata | regional climate model | conservation
Conflict of interest statement: No conflicts declared.
This paper was submitted directly (Track II) to the PNAS office.
Abbreviations: GCM, global climate model; RCM, regional climate model; CSM, Climate System Model.
Natural Resource Conservation Service (1994) State Soil Geographic (STATSGO) Data Base for California (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Fort Worth, TX).
¶ Davis, F. W., Stoms, D. M., Hollander, A. D., Thomas, K. A., Stine, P. A., Odion, D., Borchert, M. I., Thorne, J. H., Gray, M. V., Walker, R. E., et al. (1998) The California Gap Analysis Project: Final Report (Univ. of California, Santa Barbara).
|| Daly, C., Gibson, W. & Taylor, G. (2002) 103-Year High-Resolution Precipitation Climate Data Set for the Coterminous United States (Spatial Climate Analysis Service, Corvallis, OR).
** U.S. Geological Survey (2004) National Atlas of the United States of America (U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA).
California Resources Agency (2003) California Legacy Project (California Resources Agency, Sacramento, CA).
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: kueppers{at}es.ucsc.edu.
© 2005 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
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