Climate change is rapidly reshaping species distributions, affecting ecosystems and human well-being. Scientists often use climate niche models (i.e., statistical models that link species’ current distributions to climate conditions) to forecast where local populations may establish or go extinct in the future under climate change scenarios. However, their ability to accurately reproduce climate-induced changes in species distribution has been repeatedly called into question.
In a new study published in PNAS, Brunno Oliveira and his colleagues from the BIOSHIFTS working group (co-led by Lise Comte, Lead Scientist at CSP) found that across thousands of species of plants, birds, fish, and butterflies, model predictions and empirical observations generally agree on the direction of the range shifts but niche models are often inaccurate in predicting their speed. Observed range shifts were on average much faster (~4 times greater) than predicted but slower-than-expected range shifts were also common (38% of the documented cases). In general, predictions better match observations when habitat connectivity was less constrained and when the potential for elevation shifts and methodological attributes such as the duration and spatial extent of the study were accounted for.
In a complementary study published in Ecology Letters, the team offers additional insights as to why predictions may deviate from real-world biodiversity responses. The authors found that species’ genetic diversity can modulate range shift dynamics under moderate to rapid warming, buffering against range contractions at the trailing edge and facilitating range expansions at the leading edge.
These studies advance our understanding of range shift mechanisms under climate change and emphasize the need to validate species range shift predictions against long-term monitoring data. They also demonstrate that more accurate predictions, and thus more effective conservation strategies, depend on integrative approaches that combine genetic, ecological, climatic and landscape information to better capture species responses to accelerating environmental change.
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Oliveira, B. F., Bertrand, R., Pinsky, M. L., Casajus, N., Wolfe, B. W., Scheffers, B. R., Villalobos, F., Grenouillet, G., Pecl, G. T., Chen, I., Baecher, J. A., Lawlor, J. A., Sunday, J., Murienne, J., Rolland, J., Thompson, L. M., Lancaster, L. T., Rubenstein, M. A., Moore, N. A., … Comte, L. (2026). Species range shifts often speed ahead of their modeled climatic niches. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 123, e2515903123. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2515903123
Oliveira, B. F., Bertrand, R., Comte, L., Lenoir, J., Grenouillet, G., Lancaster, L., Murienne, J., Diamond, S. E., Scheffers, B. R., Bandara, J., Lawlor, J. A., Moore, N. A., Villalobos, F., Weiskopf, S. R., Wolfe, B., Pinsky, M. L., & Rolland, J. (2026). Genetic diversity impacts climate-induced species range shifts. Ecology Letters 29, e70345. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.70345