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Climate Change and Our Threatened Fauna

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Climate

Climate change is likely to be a major contributor to biodiversity loss in the Wheatbelt. Species that have specialised requirements or a restricted habitat are most vulnerable to extinction.

Climate change projections such as the reduced rainfall and elevated temperatures modelled for our region have varied implications for fauna including altering the availability of water and preferred food sources; heat stress impacting the health of adults and the development of young; and migration out of the region to more suitable habitat.

It is this last point that is useful when considering what the distribution of fauna will look like for our region into the future. Predicting the distribution of species can be achieved by characterising a species’ ‘bioclimate envelope’ or the climate where they like to live based on real observations. Many factors other than climate play an important part in determining species distributions but the bioclimate envelope approach can provide a useful first approximation.

Wheatbelt NRM’s Climate Change Portal showcases a range of projected species distribution spatial data produced by the Centre of Excellence in Natural Resource Management including maps showing biodiversity refugia and data specific to seven of the most threatened fauna in our region.

Some results of the modelling suggest that by 2080 under medium emissions scenarios:

  • there will be no suitable climate habitat in the Avon River Basin for the conservation dependent Western Mouse
  • the area of suitable climate habitat for the Honey Possum will be greatly reduced to the western fringe of the Avon Arc and the south-east corner of the region
  • the area of suitable climate habitat for endangered Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo will move south in the Avon Arc and disappear from the Great Western Woodlands
  • in contrast to many other species, the area of suitable climate habitat for endangered Western Spiny-Tailed Skink may increase dramatically
  • the current distribution of endangered Red-tailed Phascogale across the southern third of the region would have contracted to only a tiny portion of suitable climate habitat along the southern fringe of the Avon Arc
  • suitable climate habitat for the endangered Black-flanked Rock Wallaby will almost completely disappear from the Avon River Basin
  • there will be no suitable habitat for the threatened Western Ringtail Possum.

We also have access to data for another 74 threatened fauna species, so contact us if you are interested in how the animals of our region are going to fare into the changing climate of the future.