Using climate change metrics to inform conservation of Canada's Priority Places for Species at Risk

The Canadian federal government, in collaboration with the provinces and territories, agreed to implement the Pan-Canadian Approach to Transforming Species at Risk Conservation in Canada in 2018. Under this approach, 11 priority places were selected based on their biodiversity, concentrations of species at risk, and opportunities to advance conservation. Understanding the potential exposure of priority places to climate change is critical to inform effective conservation action. However, climate change makes threat assessments challenging because species respond in diverse and sometimes unpredictable ways to factors like rising temperatures and extreme weather events. We quantified potential changes across Canada's priority places using metrics representing multidimensional aspects of climate change. All priority places are projected to experience substantial change across multiple bioclimatic variables, but the nature of change differs. Annually, priority places in the west and east may experience higher precipitation, while central prairie priority places may become hotter and drier. Seasonally, western priority places may have hot and dry summers, while in the east, summer precipitation might increase and the highest temperature increase will occur during winter. Priority places with more complex topography may have capacity to function as climate refugia. These results will inform existing decision-making processes, threat assessments, and implementation of climate-informed conservation.