Williams-Climate-change-refugia-for-terrestrial-biodiversity_0

9. GAPS AND FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
The strongest future direction is that the refugial analyses need to be carried out at a
finer scale and in a conservation planning framework. Although this project has
identified broad regions of interest for terrestrial biodiversity at a national scale, it is
possible that small refugial areas that will be important for species persistence under
climate change have been missed. It is critical, therefore, that detailed analyses of
regional refugia are conducted. Our case studies touch on some ways forward in this
regard.
Australian protected areas fall within state government responsibilities, so it is
recommended that downscaled analysis at a state and then regional scale be carried
out to clearly highlight region-specific conservation priorities and to identify regional
refugia. The sub-continental-scale case studies provided in this project showcase the
possibilities available. It is clear that downscaling to even finer local scale analyses,
and locating micro-refugia (such as relatively wet areas), both inside and outside areas
likely to be important for macro-scale biodiversity will be critical if we are to manage the
local persistence of populations under climate change.
Broadening the smaller case study analyses — the greenspot modelling, evolutionary
refugia modelling and Zonation — would be of great use for refugia analyses across
Australia. The greenspot analyses, in particular, can add an additional layer of
information; pointing to places that might be decoupled from regional climate patterns
by virtue of geological or edaphic peculiarities. Likewise, a broadened evolutionary
refugia analysis would highlight areas of important historic refugia across Australia;
areas that should be upweighted in a conservation analysis by dint of their evolutionary
uniqueness. This latter analysis would depend critically on phylogenetic and
phylogeographic data that is currently being collected (by Moritz and many
collaborators). Finally, careful consideration of how to best weight and combine the
various approaches is required, and conservation prioritisation tools such as Zonation
from Case study 4 will likely play a strong role in achieving that synthesis.
Indeed, conservation planning tools have an immense capacity to synthesise data and
develop priorities taking into account highly complex planning objectives. As an
example, approaches that take into account alternative ecosystems (such as marine
and freshwater ecosystems as well as terrestrial ecosystems) in sensible ways is a
strong current focus of conservation planning theorists. There is, for example, obvious
connectivity between terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems: the freshwater ecosystem
in most cases would benefit from a more ‘intact’ terrestrial ecosystem surrounding a
catchment, and vice versa. Combining the conservation prioritisation for the Australian
Terrestrial and Australian Freshwater ecosystems would allow a more holistic
approach, with considerable advantages to both. Emerging tools for making this
synthesis across traditionally disparate biological ecosystems may enable this kind of
broad synthesis within the next few years.
The quantitative examination of the spatial pattern of refugia with respect to the existing
protected area network and the condition of refugia to inform restoration priorities will
be core to the uptake of this project by stakeholders. Ideally, this analysis would look at
the protected areas that already fall within the refugia identified in this project and will
then make recommendations on key areas to be included in the protected area network
to maximise diversity retention and resilience into the future.
The broader application of systematic conservation prioritisation tools to optimise
protection and restoration priorities of identified refugia for all of Australia is the next
114 Climate change refugia for terrestrial biodiversity