Climate safe havens could be one of Earth’s best defenses against global warming—but how well do they work?

AMHERST, Mass. — From Maine’s Acadia National Park to the wilds of Australia—and in thousands of places in-between—geological conditions exist that slow the effects of climate change on the local ecology and inhabitants. How these “climate refugia” remain relatively protected from climate change impacts over time, and how they might help local plant and animal species survive, is the focus of a special issue of the journal Conservation Science and Practice spearheaded by Toni Lyn Morelli, adjunct full professor of environmental conservation at UMass Amherst and U.S. Geological Survey research ecologist.

The world is in the midst of what scientists are calling the Sixth Extinction. Unlike the first five mass-extinction events, which were caused by natural phenomena such as volcano eruptions, the current crisis is primarily caused by human activity. Morelli and teammates are devoting the journal’s special issue to examining how far the relatively recent climate refugia movement has come, lessons learned and what steps humans can take while the window of opportunity remains open.

“I received my Ph.D. in lemur behavior and genetics,” says Morelli, “and while I loved living in a tent in a rainforest as I researched them, I was also watching primates being driven toward extinction. I decided then and there to switch my focus to match the urgency of the problem and set out to study climate change.”

After spending time in the Sierra Nevada mountain range with Connie Millar, retired U.S. Forest Service research ecologist and the “mother of climate refugia,” Morelli became entranced by a potential bright spot in the otherwise grim science of climate change.

“There seem to be these special places, all over the world, where the rate of climate change is slower than in the surrounding areas,” says Morelli. “What if we could identify these spots and figure out which species they could protect from warming, fire and other threats? What if we could connect these spots, so that as the climate changes, plants and animals would have corridors through which they could track their preferred climate and avoid the worst of global warming?”

In 2017, Morelli led a group of co-authors from universities and government agencies, including the National Park Service, in defining the term climate-change refugia and introducing a process for identifying and implementing such sanctuaries. In their new work, Morelli and the authors of 19 papers in the new issue have checked in on sanctuaries from Australia to Acadia National Park to assess how far refugia science and conservation has come.

In their lead paper, Morelli and former UMass postdoctoral researcher Tina Mozelewski, now at the Spatial Informatics Group—Natural Assets Laboratory, along with 22 other researchers and practitioners from around the world, surveyed the existing scientific literature on climate refugia, finding 634 studies, most from the last five years. “This tells us that there’s a great deal of interest,” says Mozelewski, “however, most of these studies focus on Europe or the U.S., overwhelmingly look at ecosystems on land, rather than oceans, lakes, or streams, and predominately focus on plants and vertebrates.”

Morelli and her coauthors also point to the voluminous work that has been done to identify and map potential refugia (more than 530 of the 634 studies), whereas only a scant 4% of the surveyed research covers on-the-ground implementation. In particular, the authors note that, given constraints on resources, the most crucial action steps need to be identified, and, once implemented, each refuge’s effectiveness needs to be gauged.

“Decades’ worth of effort are for nothing if the refugia aren’t actually protected,” says Morelli.

Climate Refugia from Acadia to Australia

One of the brightest spots in the effort to establish climate refugia is in and around Acadia National Park. “Acadia has really been out front in terms of thinking about climate adaptation,” says Morelli. The study’s authors, led by Christopher Nadeau of Maine’s Schoodic Institute and including Morelli and Mozelewski, spent years working with tribal leaders, local managers and tourist industry stakeholders to identify which species to prioritize and map. They then used the results to take action and restore refugia on Cadillac Mountain, and evaluated a regional restoration effort focused on two key indicator species, the grasshopper sparrow and Jefferson salamander.

On the other side of the U.S., a team led by Oregon State University’s Meg Krawchuk focused on places in the Pacific Northwest that could provide sanctuary from wildfire. Among the most critical steps that they highlight is the need to work in “respectful and reciprocal relationships with Tribal partners” that “incorporates both western science and Indigenous Knowledge.” For instance, the team cites the Yurok Tribe’s cultural fire stewards Elizabeth Azzuz and Margo Robbins who say that “there’s a specific area that they [Douglas firs] are supposed to be in and we used fire to maintain that balance.”

Other papers focused on how refugia conservation could fit into existing landscape planning. Gregory Kehm, principal and founder at GKA Geographics Solutions Inc., and his team worked in British Columbia with members of the shíshálh Nation to help identify and connect potential refugia and to collaboratively develop a flexible implementation plan to both reduce current threats and respond to future ones in ways that further Indigenous, local and provincial biodiversity goals.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Forest Service’s Diana Stralberg led a team that developed a comprehensive, general framework that could help incorporate refugia into planning everything from conservation to regional land use and resource management.

In Tanzania, Morelli and Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center postdoctoral fellow Cybil N. Cavalieri worked with Tanzanian partners to produce assessment across the country and discovered that more than half of the 33 terrestrial species they studied would lose their suitable habitat. However, they also found that Serengeti National Park, the Northern Highlands Forest Reserve and the Eastern Arc Mountains will become crucial climate refugia. across the country and discovered that more than half of the 33 terrestrial species they studied would lose their suitable habitat. However, they also found that Serengeti National Park, the Northern Highlands Forest Reserve and the Eastern Arc Mountains will become crucial climate refugia.

These papers move regional conservation forward in the U.S. as well. Lindsay Dreiss, vice president of conservation research and innovation at Defenders of Wildlife, and her team assessed whether the public lands and waters managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) are able to act as refugia for migratory songbirds and waterfowl and found that many of the FWS properties already have “significantly greater refugia value” than elsewhere in the U.S.

The papers not only looked at areas buffered from warming. In Australia, which has been devastated by wildfire and drought in recent years, the University of South Australia’s Chloé Bentze and Gunnar Keppel, a world-renowned refugia researcher, looked at how refugia could help sustain the stringybark eucalyptus through both drought and fire. While these areas were less affected by climate-induced drought, Bentze’s team still notes that, during periods of extreme drought, even the refugia might need to be irrigated if the stringybark eucalyptus are to survive.

From mapping to irrigation, this set of papers shows that the science and conservation of refugia is complex and evolving but offers a rare bright spot in the face of the otherwise overwhelming impacts of climate change.

Contacts: Toni Lyn Morelli, morelli@umass.edu

                  Daegan Miller, drmiller@umass.edu

About the University of Massachusetts Amherst 

The flagship of the commonwealth, the University of Massachusetts Amherst is a nationally ranked public land-grant research university that seeks to expand educational access, fuel innovation and creativity and share and use its knowledge for the common good. Founded in 1863, UMass Amherst sits on nearly 1,450-acres in scenic Western Massachusetts and boasts state-of-the-art facilities for teaching, research, scholarship and creative activity. The institution advances a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community where everyone feels connected and valued—and thrives, and offers a full range of undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees across 10 schools and colleges and 100 undergraduate majors.