Center for Biodiversity Dynamics in a Changing World (BIOCHANGE), Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 114, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
Section for Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 114, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2019 Dec 23;374(1788):20190219. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0219. Epub 2019 Nov 4.
During periods of strong environmental change, some areas may serve as refugia, where components of biodiversity can find protection, persist and potentially expand from should conditions again become favourable. The refugia concept has previously been used in the context of climatic change, to describe climatically stable areas in which taxa survived past Quaternary glacial-interglacial oscillations, or where they might persist in the future under anthropogenic climate change. However, with the recognition that Earth has entered the Anthropocene, an era in which human activities are the dominant driving force on ecosystems, it is critical to also consider human pressures on the environment as factors limiting species distributions. Here, we present a novel concept, Anthropocene refugia, to refer to areas that provide spatial and temporal protection from human activities and that will remain suitable for a given taxonomic unit in the long-term. It integrates a deep-time perspective on species biogeography that provides information on the natural rather than current-day relictual distribution of species, with spatial information on modern and future anthropogenic threats. We define the concept and propose a methodology to effectively identify and map realized and potential current and future refugia, using examples for two megafaunal species as a proof of concept. We argue that identifying Anthropocene refugia will improve biodiversity conservation and restoration by allowing better prediction of key areas for conservation and potential for re-expansions today and in the future. More generally, it forms a new conceptual framework to assess and manage the impact of anthropogenic activities on past, current and future patterns of species distributions. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'The past is a foreign country: how much can the fossil record actually inform conservation?'
在环境剧烈变化的时期，一些地区可能成为避难所，生物多样性的组成部分可以在那里找到保护，持续存在，并在条件再次变得有利时潜在地扩张。避难所的概念以前曾在气候变化的背景下被使用，来描述气候稳定的地区，其中分类单元在过去的第四纪冰期-间冰期振荡中幸存下来，或者在人为气候变化下它们可能在未来幸存下来。然而，随着地球已经进入人类世这一认识的出现，人类活动成为生态系统的主要驱动力，因此，考虑人类对环境的压力作为限制物种分布的因素也至关重要。在这里，我们提出了一个新概念，即人类世避难所，指的是为物种提供免受人类活动影响的时间和空间保护的区域，并且在长期内将仍然适合特定分类单元。它将物种生物地理学的深时视角与现代和未来人为威胁的空间信息相结合，提供了有关物种自然而不是当前残余分布的信息。我们定义了这个概念，并提出了一种有效的方法来识别和绘制实现的和潜在的当前和未来避难所，并以两个巨型动物物种的例子作为概念验证。我们认为，确定人类世避难所将通过更好地预测保护的关键区域以及今天和未来物种再扩张的潜力，从而改善生物多样性保护和恢复。更广泛地说，它形成了一个新的概念框架，用于评估和管理人为活动对过去、当前和未来物种分布模式的影响。本文是关于“过去是一个陌生的国家：化石记录到底能在多大程度上为保护提供信息？”的讨论会议的一部分。
