Protected areas enhance expanding populations and mitigate declines on range edges under climate change

Warming climate is changing geographical distributions of species. However, keeping pace with the climate may be complicated. The climate is indeed changing faster than species are capable of following it. Other environmental changes can hamper the ability of species to move if they face difficulties following climatic preferences in a fragmented landscape. This may lead to increased extinction risk especially for species inhabiting high latitudes and altitudes. These species are expected to be particularly exposed to the consequences of climate change due to the lack of space into which they can retreat. Evidence is mounting that this may indeed be the case, since boreal and montane specie…