Assessing the spatial distribution of biodiversity in a changing temperature pattern: the case of Catalonia, Spain

Abstract

The impacts that climate change and land-use dynamics have on biodiversity are already visible in the distribution and behaviour of a large number of species. By using a Bayesian framework, including land-use, meteorological, topography and other variables as explanatory variables, such as distance to roads and urban centres, we modeled a number of species within each cell of a regular lattice for Catalonia, Spain, in the period of 2004 to 2010. We estimated a slight increase in daily maximum temperature and a more significant increase in minimum temperature (a 5-year increase of 0.159 °C in maximum temperature, and an increase of 0.332 °C in minimum temperature). The estimation shows that the total number of species was greater than expected in the cells where land use was not urban—38.4%, in forests and 55.2% in mixed forests. Finally, we observed that most invasive species are found in areas where the minimum temperature is expected to increase. Our study can help with making important recommendations as to where, when and how future threats could affect specie distribution and the kind of planning processes needed for when protected natural areas will be unable to continue to support all the species they were designed to protect