Abstract Climate change is among the greatest challenges to biodiversity conservation globally. In response to climatic changes, species around the world have already started to shift their ranges along altitudinal and latitudinal gradients. However, it remains unclear whether the areas currently managed for biodiversity protection are optimized for these shifting ranges. Climate velocities represent a method to quantify the rate at which organisms must alter their range to maintain their current climate envelope. Here we use a case study of the Southern Rockies region in the western United States to show how forward and backward climate velocities can be used to quantify potential impacts of climatic changes and delineate abiotic climate refugia. We further illustrate how climate velocities can integrate into a process that simultaneously identifies climate refugia for suites of species while accounting for additional landscape factors contributing to protected area success. These results demonstrate how potential climatic changes may be used to prioritize the efficient selection of climate refugia, potentially aiding multi-target climate adaptation decision-making across broad regions.

中文翻译：

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作为气候变化下生物多样性潜在避难所的保护区

摘要 气候变化是全球生物多样性保护面临的最大挑战之一。为了应对气候变化，世界各地的物种已经开始沿着海拔和纬度梯度改变它们的分布范围。然而，目前尚不清楚目前为保护生物多样性而管理的区域是否针对这些变化范围进行了优化。气候速度代表了一种量化生物体必须改变其活动范围以维持其当前气候包线的速率的方法。在这里，我们使用美国西部南落基山脉地区的案例研究来展示如何使用前向和后向气候速度来量化气候变化的潜在影响并描绘非生物气候保护区。我们进一步说明了气候速度如何整合到一个过程中，该过程同时确定物种套件的气候避难所，同时考虑到有助于保护区成功的其他景观因素。这些结果证明了如何利用潜在的气候变化来优先考虑气候避难所的有效选择，从而可能有助于广泛区域的多目标气候适应决策。