Conservation biogeography of high‐altitude longhorn beetles under climate change

Abstract

High‐altitude insects are expected to be strongly affected by climate change because of their limited range. Phytophagous species will be subject to further threats because of their dependence on host plants. We investigated the impact of climate change on the distribution of Italian high‐altitude longhorn beetles (Cerambycidae) using a maximum entropy approach based on bioclimatic variables. We used 510 presence records for 15 species distributed throughout the Italian Alps and Apennines. Then, we combined climate‐based predictions with vegetation data to predict the future changes in the extent of suitable areas. All species but two will move uphill to track suitable climates and will face a range contraction (with an average loss of 44%) under both climatic change scenarios considered. Suitable vegetation covers, on average, only 56% of the estimated current species ranges, which means that the future distribution will be even more limited. Given the importance of Italian mountains as hubs of diversity in the Mediterranean hotspot, these results are particularly alarming. Conservation actions that can mitigate the effects of climate change on high‐altitude cerambycids should be focused on contrasting habitat loss and degradation through land preservation and the adoption of appropriate forest management practices.

Priority conservation areas for protected saproxylic beetles in Romania under current and future climate scenarios

“…3). These responses support previous ndings in Europe, indicating that under future climate scenarios, there will be a reduction of saproxylic beetles distribution, and the species habitat will be restricted to higher altitudinal areas (Poloni et al 2022).…”

Upward and Poleward (but Not Phenological) Shifts in a Forest Tenebrionid Beetle in Response to Global Change in a Mediterranean Area

“…Although the impacts of climate change on species distributions may show considerable variation (including no or counterintuitive effects) [5][6][7][8][9][10][11], the most commonly documented patterns in response to increasing temperatures are range expansions/shifts upslope (i.e., to higher elevations) and poleward (i.e., to higher latitudes) [9,10,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. Species that cannot track their thermal niches through upslope and poleward movements because of their low dispersal capabilities or geographical constraints (e.g., species that are already on mountain tops cannot move further uphill), and that cannot adapt to the new climatic conditions, are subject to population decline and even local or global extinction if their environment becomes climatically unsuitable [30][31][32][33][34][35][36]. As seasonal activities such as breeding and flowering are profoundly influenced by climatic conditions, climate change also affects species phenology (i.e., the timing of seasonal events in their life cycles) [37,38].…”

“…Changes in phenology are also documented in many insects, with a shift toward earlier seasonal activity being the most commonly recorded pattern [38,49]. However, current studies on insect responses to climate change suffer from many limits: (1) empirical studies have been progressively outweighed by predictive work [28,30,36,[72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83], which has led to a substantial scarcity of empirical data; (2) most work has been focused on a few, usually charismatic taxa such as butterflies and dragonflies [19,30,35,51,52,55,[59][60][61]65,66,68,71,73,84,85], while responses in most insect taxa remain unknown; (3) most research has been conducted in relatively few areas, with a strong preponderance of studies conducted in Europe, especially in central and northern countries [9,10,17,23,26,50,53,[59][60][61]68,…”

Back to the future: Climate change effects on habitat suitability of Parnassius apollo throughout the Quaternary glacial cycles

“…Forest succession in the lowlands is boosted by an increasing CO 2 level due to climate change (Gustafson et al, 2020), reducing open areas required by P. apollo for its life cycle. On the other hand, populations occurring at higher altitudes (the Alps, Pyrenees, Massif Central) seem to be rather stable (Nadler et al, 2021), even if the effects of climate change (treeline advance, vegetational turnover) are forcing cold‐adapted insects to higher altitudes in the already limited alpine grasslands (Martín‐Vélez & Abellán, 2022; Poloni et al, 2022). The populations' trend in the eastern part of the distribution range (Urals Mts., Altai Mts., Asian steppes) is uncertain due to the lack of data on temporal changes.…”