While the results of the traditional model did not predict that any of the fish species would be extirpated, or locally driven out, by climate change, the PGA model revealed that cold-adapted fish would be extirpated in 61% of their current habitat with rising temperature.
Gretchen Hansen, assistant professor at the University of Minnesota and a coauthor on the study, suggested that models that do not include physiological preferences may lead to underestimations of the risk climate change may pose to cold-adapted species.
“We showed that temperature-driven changes in distribution, local extinction, and abundance of cold-, cool- and warm-adapted species varied substantially when physiological information was incorporated into the model,” she said. “The PGA model provided more realistic predictions under future climate scenarios compared with traditional approaches and has great potential for more realistically estimating the effects of climate change on cold blooded species.”
Also contributing to the research at Penn State was Christopher Custer, doctoral degree student in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management; as well as Erin Schliep, Department of Statistics, North Carolina State University; Joshua North, Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; and Holly Kundel and Jenna Ruzich, Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, University of Minnesota.
This research was funded by the U.S. Geological Survey Midwest Climate Adaptation Science Center and the National Science Foundation.