Climate-driven range shifts of the king penguin in a fragmented ecosystem

Description

Range shift is the primary short-term response of species to rapid climate change but it is hamperedby natural or anthropogenic habitat fragmentation. Fragmented habitats expose different criticalareas of a species niche to heterogeneous environmental changes resulting in uncoupled effects.Modelling species distribution under complex real-life scenarios and incorporating such uncoupledeffects has not been achieved yet. Here we identify the most vulnerable areas and the potential coldrefugia of a top-predator with fragmented niche range in the Southern ocean by integrating genomic,ecological and behavioural data with atmospheric and oceanographic models. Our integrative approachconstitutes an indispensable example for predicting the effect of global warming on speciesrelying on spatially and ecologically distinct areas to complete their life-cycle (e.g., migratory animals,marine pelagic organisms, central-place foragers) and, in general, on species constrained infragmented landscapes due to continuously-growing anthropogenic pressure.

Abstract

International audience

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