Habitat availability and environmental preference drive species range shifts in concordance with climate change

Abstract

Aim: A progressive increase in air temperature is recognized as the most important mechanistic driver of species range shifts. However, only a few studies have simultaneously considered the influence of both extrinsic and intrinsic mechanistic drivers; there are still no studies on the roles of extrinsic and intrinsic drivers that regulate such species changes. We investigated how species will shift their geographical ranges to cope with future climate change and analysed the relative importance of the mechanistic drivers in governing species range shifts. Location: Sixteen countries in South, West and North Europe. Methods: We used ensemble species distribution models on the European continental scale to predict 105 odonate species in response to climate change in the future decades until 2080s under three emission scenarios. We evaluated the projected changes in four community metrics (distribution area, optimum position, leading edge and trailing edge) and investigated how these changes are driven by extrinsic and intrinsic factors. Results: The odonate species were predicted to shift their range margins poleward, with a higher migration rate towards the trailing edge (2.38‒10.34 km/year) than the leading edge (1.13‒2.00 km/year). Contrary to the assumption that the response of the odonate species to climate change will linearly accelerate over time, the distribution areas of odonate species were predicted to increase until 2050s and then decline until 2080s under RCP 2.6 (representative concentration pathway). However, their distributions under RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 were predicted to decrease over time, with a higher rate under RCP 8.5. Overall, environmental preference and habitat override dispersal ability govern the range shift of odonate species. Main conclusions: Quantifying the relative importance of extrinsic and intrinsic factors across a large spatial scale under different emission scenarios can help understand the mechanistic processes to facilitate species range shifts.