Mediterranean Ecosystems Worldwide: Climate Adaptation - Recent Advances and Issues in Environmental Science - page 40

toward the north. Southwestern Australia is a fl at highly weathered plateau [27] and is
contained by the Indian Ocean to the south, resulting in the largest projected contrac-
tion of all the regions.
While, this is the fi rst global assessment of the impacts of climate change on the
MCE, our results are consistent with other regional biome and species level analy-
ses. The IPCC determined that the mediterranean biome as a whole is threatened by
desertifi cation from expansion of semi-arid and arid system under relatively minor
warming and drying scenarios, and projects signifi cant regional vegetation and spe-
cies range shifts [28]. In South Africa, despite differences in the current spatial extent,
Midgley et al. projected areas of future mediterranean biome contraction and stability
in similar areas as our analysis [15]. Similarly, Williams et al. and Hannah et al. found
the higher elevation areas of the Western Cape in South Africa support high levels of
endemic Proteaceae species richness, and will be important habitat for dispersal by
2050, while the low-lying areas north of Cape Town are high in richness now, but are
not protected to support the species in the future [29, 30]. These areas correspond well
with our projected areas of higher elevation stability and lower elevation contraction
in South Africa. Fitzpatrick et al. studied potential range shifts for native Banksia
species in Western Australia and found the areas of greatest percent loss in richness
in the arid interior, while the projected loss was less severe in the coastal areas and
Fitz-Sterling Ranges [11]. These results are consistent with the results presented in
Figure 2, although Fitzpatrick et al. did project species richness increases along the
western coast of Australia, while our analysis found almost no projected expansion
of the MCE in Australia. Loarie et al. identifi ed areas of future refugia for species
with projected range reductions in the mountainous areas along the central coast and
foothills of California, USA and Baja California, Mexico [14], which correspond well
with our areas of projected MCE stability. Benito-Garzón et al. studied a series of tree
species in the Iberian Peninsula and found that some of the mediterranean species had
the least projected range reductions and could potentially expand north and into higher
elevations [13], which is consistent with our fi ndings in Spain and Portugal. In general,
the results from these biome and species level analyses that focused on one region at a
time support our fi ndings as well as the urgent need for conservation action to increase
the extrinsic adaptation potential of the native biota of the mediterranean biome.
This analysis shows that climate change puts areas with the some of the highest
levels of plant diversity and endemism on the Earth at risk. As shown in Figure 2, the
Mediterranean Basin, Morocco, and Israel contain large areas of projected contraction
with no adjacent areas of expansion. The mediterranean portions of Morocco contain
almost 13 plant species per 1,000 km 2 , while Israel contains 200 [7]. The cape region
in South Africa and southwest Australia are the other two regions with large projected
losses, and they contain 95.5 and 71 plant species per 1,000 km 2 , respectively [7].
For comparison, there is one plant species/1,000 km 2 in Europe, 6.5 in Brazil, and 40
in Columbia [7]. The current MCE in these four threatened countries contain 22,400
plants species, 12,925 of which are found nowhere else [7].
The adaptation potential of the species native to the mediterranean biome will be
further limited beyond the direct impacts of climate change analyzed here. Native