Old tools, new view: utilizing species distribution models to focus conservation efforts under a changing climate

In New York State, scientists have observed many changes in bird communities including population declines, range contractions, mismatch between behavior and resources, and changes in bird phenology as a result of climatic changes. Four objectives were addressed with this research: understanding how different bird species may respond to changing climatic conditions under a future IPCC emission scenario; determining how suitable habitat may change in the future and what bioclimatic variables are important to specific avian guilds; identifying hotspots of suitable habitat that may represent important areas for conservation investment; and investigating how managers can incorporate future climate predictions into management and conservation strategies.;Current and future projected species distribution models (SDMs) for New York's bird species of greatest conservation need (SGCN) were created in order to identify hotspots of change and areas that may be critical for management efforts. Audubon Christmas Bird Count and Breeding Bird Atlas data were used to generate presence data and species were grouped into guild with respect to habitat requirements. Maxent 3.3.1 was used to generate habitat suitability indices and the output was projected and reclassified ArcMap to depicting changes in potential distributions under the IPCC A1B scenario using NOAA's GFDL global climate model for the year 2050.;AUC values indicating model accuracy ranged from .540 to .968 for baseline models and from .566 to .971 for future models. Potential change in top 50% suitable habitat ranged from +45% to -6%. Any tools forecasting distributions for changing environments will be central to species conservation, therefore a novel framework was developed to assist wildlife managers in the identification of conservation hotspots to focus conservation efforts. SDMs are just one critical step in this process, and by understanding the uncertainties regarding modeling software and species response, SDMs can effectively translate climate projections into ecological consequences to focus conservation and inform management decisions. Many of the tools we use to manage species today will remain the same into the future, but we must focus on the principles of biodiversity conservation rather than restoration of unviable habitats.