Effects of high latitude protected areas on bird communities under rapid climate change

Anthropogenic climate change is rapidly becoming one of the main threats to biodiversity, along with other threats triggered by human‐driven land‐use change. Species are already responding to climate change by shifting their distributions polewards. This shift may create a spatial mismatch between dynamic species distributions and static protected areas (PAs). As protected areas represent one of the main pillars for preserving biodiversity today and in the future, it is important to assess their contribution in sheltering the biodiversity communities, they were designated to protect. A recent development to investigate climate‐driven impacts on biological communities is represented by the community temperature index (CTI). CTI provides a measure of the relative temperature average of a community in a specific assemblage. CTI value will be higher for assemblages dominated by warm species compared with those dominated by cold‐dwelling species. We here model changes in the CTI of Finnish bird assemblages, as well as changes in species densities, within and outside of PAs during the past four decades in a large boreal landscape under rapid change. We show that CTI has markedly increased over time across Finland, with this change being similar within and outside PAs and five to seven times slower than the temperature increase. Moreover, CTI has been constantly lower within than outside of PAs, and PAs still support communities, which show colder thermal index than those outside of PAs in the 1970s and 1980s. This result can be explained by the higher relative density of northern species within PAs than outside. Overall, our results provide some, albeit inconclusive, evidence that PAs may play a role in supporting the community of northern species. Results also suggest that communities are, however, shifting rapidly, both inside and outside of PAs, highlighting the need for adjusting conservation measures before it is too late.     

Losing your edge: climate change and the conservation value of range‐edge populations

Populations occurring at species' range edges can be locally adapted to unique environmental conditions. From a species' perspective, range‐edge environments generally have higher severity and frequency of extreme climatic events relative to the range core. Under future climates, extreme climatic events are predicted to become increasingly important in defining species' distributions. Therefore, range‐edge genotypes that are better adapted to extreme climates relative to core populations may be essential to species' persistence during periods of rapid climate change. We use relatively simple conceptual models to highlight the importance of locally adapted range‐edge populations (leading and trailing edges) for determining the ability of species to persist under future climates. Using trees as an example, we show how locally adapted populations at species' range edges may expand under future climate change and become more common relative to range‐core populations. We also highlight how large‐scale habitat destruction occurring in some geographic areas where many species range edge converge, such as biome boundaries and ecotones (e.g., the arc of deforestation along the rainforest‐cerrado ecotone in the southern Amazonia), can have major implications for global biodiversity. As climate changes, range‐edge populations will play key roles in helping species to maintain or expand their geographic distributions. The loss of these locally adapted range‐edge populations through anthropogenic disturbance is therefore hypothesized to reduce the ability of species to persist in the face of rapid future climate change.     

Patterns of climate‐induced density shifts of species: poleward shifts faster in northern boreal birds than in southern birds

Climate change has been shown to cause poleward range shifts of species. These shifts are typically demonstrated using presence–absence data, which can mask the potential changes in the abundance of species. Moreover, changes in the mean centre of weighted density of species are seldom examined, and comparisons between these two methods are even rarer. Here, we studied the change in the mean weighted latitude of density (MWLD) of 94 bird species in Finland, northern Europe, using data covering a north–south gradient of over 1000 km from the 1970s to the 2010s. The MWLD shifted northward on average 1.26 km yr^?1, and this shift was significantly stronger in northern species compared to southern species. These shifts can be related to climate warming during the study period, because the annual temperature had increased more in northern Finland (by 1.7 °C) than in southern Finland (by 1.4 °C), although direct causal links cannot be shown. Density shifts of species distributed over the whole country did not differ from shifts in species situated on the edge of the species range in southern and northern species. This means that density shifts occur both in the core and on the edge of species distribution. The species‐specific comparison of MWLD values with corresponding changes in the mean weighted latitude using presence–absence atlas data (MWL) revealed that the MWLD moved more slowly than the MWL in the atlas data in the southern species examined, but more rapidly in the northern species. Our findings highlight that population densities are also moving rapidly towards the poles and the use of presence–absence data can mask the shift of population densities. We encourage use of abundance data in studies considering the effects of climate change on biodiversity.     

Both life‐history plasticity and local adaptation will shape range‐wide responses to climate warming in the tundra plant Silene acaulis

Many predictions of how climate change will impact biodiversity have focused on range shifts using species‐wide climate tolerances, an approach that ignores the demographic mechanisms that enable species to attain broad geographic distributions. But these mechanisms matter, as responses to climate change could fundamentally differ depending on the contributions of life‐history plasticity vs. local adaptation to species‐wide climate tolerances. In particular, if local adaptation to climate is strong, populations across a species’ range—not only those at the trailing range edge—could decline sharply with global climate change. Indeed, faster rates of climate change in many high latitude regions could combine with local adaptation to generate sharper declines well away from trailing edges. Combining 15 years of demographic data from field populations across North America with growth chamber warming experiments, we show that growth and survival in a widespread tundra plant show compensatory responses to warming throughout the species’ latitudinal range, buffering overall performance across a range of temperatures. However, populations also differ in their temperature responses, consistent with adaptation to local climate, especially growing season temperature. In particular, warming begins to negatively impact plant growth at cooler temperatures for plants from colder, northern populations than for those from warmer, southern populations, both in the field and in growth chambers. Furthermore, the individuals and maternal families with the fastest growth also have the lowest water use efficiency at all temperatures, suggesting that a trade‐off between growth and water use efficiency could further constrain responses to forecasted warming and drying. Taken together, these results suggest that populations throughout species’ ranges could be at risk of decline with continued climate change, and that the focus on trailing edge populations risks overlooking the largest potential impacts of climate change on species’ abundance and distribution.     

Precipitation and winter temperature predict long‐term range‐scale abundance changes in Western North American birds

Predicting biodiversity responses to climate change remains a difficult challenge, especially in climatically complex regions where precipitation is a limiting factor. Though statistical climatic envelope models are frequently used to project future scenarios for species distributions under climate change, these models are rarely tested using empirical data. We used long‐term data on bird distributions and abundance covering five states in the western US and in the Canadian province of British Columbia to test the capacity of statistical models to predict temporal changes in bird populations over a 32‐year period. Using boosted regression trees, we built presence‐absence and abundance models that related the presence and abundance of 132 bird species to spatial variation in climatic conditions. Presence/absence models built using 1970–1974 data forecast the distributions of the majority of species in the later time period, 1998–2002 (mean AUC = 0.79 ± 0.01). Hindcast models performed equivalently (mean AUC = 0.82 ± 0.01). Correlations between observed and predicted abundances were also statistically significant for most species (forecast mean Spearman′s ρ = 0.34 ± 0.02, hindcast = 0.39 ± 0.02). The most stringent test is to test predicted changes in geographic patterns through time. Observed changes in abundance patterns were significantly positively correlated with those predicted for 59% of species (mean Spearman′s ρ = 0.28 ± 0.02, across all species). Three precipitation variables (for the wettest month, breeding season, and driest month) and minimum temperature of the coldest month were the most important predictors of bird distributions and abundances in this region, and hence of abundance changes through time. Our results suggest that models describing associations between climatic variables and abundance patterns can predict changes through time for some species, and that changes in precipitation and winter temperature appear to have already driven shifts in the geographic patterns of abundance of bird populations in western North America.     

Role of African protected areas in maintaining connectivity for large mammals

The African protected area (PA) network has the potential to act as a set of functionally interconnected patches that conserve meta-populations of mammal species, but individual PAs are vulnerable to habitat change which may disrupt connectivity and increase extinction risk. Individual PAs have different roles in maintaining connectivity, depending on their size and location. We measured their contribution to network connectivity (irreplaceability) for carnivores and ungulates and combined it with a measure of vulnerability based on a 30-year trend in remotely sensed vegetation cover (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index). Highly irreplaceable PAs occurred mainly in southern and eastern Africa. Vegetation cover change was generally faster outside than inside PAs and particularly so in southern Africa. The extent of change increased with the distance from PAs. About 5% of highly irreplaceable PAs experienced a faster vegetation cover loss than their surroundings, thus requiring particular conservation attention. Our analysis identified PAs at risk whose isolation would disrupt the connectivity of the PA network for large mammals. This is an example of how ecological spatial modelling can be combined with large-scale remote sensing data to investigate how land cover change may affect ecological processes and species conservation.     

Protected areas offer refuge from invasive species spreading under climate change

Protected areas (PAs) are intended to provide native biodiversity and habitats with a refuge against the impacts of global change, particularly acting as natural filters against biological invasions. In practice, however, it is unknown how effective PAs will be in shielding native species from invasions under projected climate change. Here, we investigate the current and future potential distributions of 100 of the most invasive terrestrial, freshwater, and marine species in Europe. We use this information to evaluate the combined threat posed by climate change and invasions to existing PAs and the most susceptible species they shelter. We found that only a quarter of Europe's marine and terrestrial areas protected over the last 100 years have been colonized by any of the invaders investigated, despite offering climatically suitable conditions for invasion. In addition, hotspots of invasive species and the most susceptible native species to their establishment do not match at large continental scales. Furthermore, the predicted richness of invaders is 11%–18% significantly lower inside PAs than outside them. Invasive species are rare in long‐established national parks and nature reserves, which are actively protected and often located in remote and pristine regions with very low human density. In contrast, the richness of invasive species is high in the more recently designated Natura 2000 sites, which are subject to high human accessibility. This situation may change in the future, since our models anticipate important shifts in species ranges toward the north and east of Europe at unprecedented rates of 14–55 km/decade, depending on taxonomic group and scenario. This may seriously compromise the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. This study is the first comprehensive assessment of the resistance that PAs provide against biological invasions and climate change on a continental scale and illustrates their strategic value in safeguarding native biodiversity.     

Conservation of tropical forest birds in countryside habitats

The pressing need to increase agricultural production often seems at odds with conserving biodiversity. We find that if managed properly, the tropical countryside may provide a substantial opportunity for tropical bird conservation. We detected 144 bird species from 29 families in agricultural areas outside of extensive native forest in southern Costa Rica. The majority of the species detected were observed foraging, often kilometres from extensive native forest. We estimate that 46% of those native to this region (excluding nocturnal species and waterfowl) are utilizing the countryside in some manner. Forecasts of biodiversity change under various land-use scenarios indicate that policies that affect habitat composition could greatly impact the persistence of these species in the countryside. In particular, if tall trees and edge habitats were removed from this landscape, we predict that bird richness in the countryside would decline by approximately 40%.     

Assessing Local and Surrounding Threats to the Protected Area Network in a Biodiversity Hotspot: The Hengduan Mountains of Southwest China

Protected areas (PAs) not only serve as refuges of biodiversity conservation but are also part of large ecosystems and are vulnerable to change caused by human activity from surrounding lands, especially in biodiversity hotspots. Assessing threats to PAs and surrounding areas is therefore a critical step in effective conservation planning. We apply a threat framework as a means of quantitatively assessing local and surrounding threats to different types of PAs with gradient buffers, and to main ecoregions in the Hengduan Mountain Hotspot of southwest China. Our findings show that national protected areas (NPAs) have lower and significantly lower threat values (p<0.05) than provincial protected areas (PPAs) and other protected areas (OPAs), respectively, which indicates that NPAs are lands with a lower threat level and higher levels of protection and management. PAs have clear edge effects, as the proportion of areas with low threat levels decline dramatically in the 5-kilometer buffers just outside the PAs. However, NPAs suffered greater declines (58.3%) than PPAs (34.8%) and OPAs (33.4%) in the 5-kilometer buffers. Moreover, a significant positive correlation was found between the size of PAs and the proportion of areas with low threat levels that they contained in both PAs and PA buffers (p<0.01). To control or mitigate current threats at the regional scale, PA managers often require quantitative information related to threat intensities and spatial distribution. The threat assessment in the Hengduan Mountain Hotspot will be useful to policy makers and managers in their efforts to establish effective plans and target-oriented management strategies.     

Local Scale Comparisons of Biodiversity as a Test for Global Protected Area Ecological Performance: A Meta-Analysis

Terrestrial protected areas (PAs) are cornerstones of global biodiversity conservation. Their efficacy in terms of maintaining biodiversity is, however, much debated. Studies to date have been unable to provide a general answer as to PA conservation efficacy because of their typically restricted geographic and/or taxonomic focus, or qualitative approaches focusing on proxies for biodiversity, such as deforestation. Given the rarity of historical data to enable comparisons of biodiversity before/after PA establishment, many smaller scale studies over the past 30 years have directly compared biodiversity inside PAs to that of surrounding areas, which provides one measure of PA ecological performance. Here we use a meta-analysis of such studies (N = 86) to test if PAs contain higher biodiversity values than surrounding areas, and so assess their contribution to determining PA efficacy. We find that PAs generally have higher abundances of individual species, higher assemblage abundances, and higher species richness values compared with alternative land uses. Local scale studies in combination thus show that PAs retain more biodiversity than alternative land use areas. Nonetheless, much variation is present in the effect sizes, which underscores the context-specificity of PA efficacy.     

Response of the endangered tropical dry forests to climate change and the role of Mexican Protected Areas for their conservation

Assuming that co‐distributed species are exposed to similar environmental conditions, ecological niche models (ENMs) of bird and plant species inhabiting tropical dry forests (TDFs) in Mexico were developed to evaluate future projections of their distribution for the years 2050 and 2070. We used ENM‐based predictions and climatic data for two Global Climate Models, considering two Representative Concentration Pathway scenarios (RCP4.5/RCP8.5). We also evaluated the effects of habitat loss and the importance of the Mexican system of protected areas (PAs) on the projected models for a more detailed prediction of TDFs and to identify hot spots that require conservation actions. We identified four major distributional areas: the main one located along the Pacific Coast (from Sonora to Chiapas, including the Cape and Bajío regions, and the Balsas river basin), and three isolated areas: the Yucatán peninsula, central Veracruz, and southern Tamaulipas. When considering the effect of habitat loss, a significant reduction (~61%) of the TDFs predicted area occurred, whereas climate‐change models suggested (in comparison with the present distribution model) an increase in area of 3.0–10.0% and 3.0–9.0% for 2050 and 2070, respectively. In future scenarios, TDFs will occupy areas above its current average elevational distribution that are outside of its present geographical range. Our findings show that TDFs may persist in Mexican territory until the middle of the XXI century; however, the challenges about long‐term conservation are partially addressed (only 7% unaffected within the Mexican network of PAs) with the current Mexican PAs network. Based on our ENM approach, we suggest that a combination of models of species inhabiting present TDFs and taking into account change scenarios represent an invaluable tool to create new PAs and ecological corridors, as a response to the increasing levels of habitat destruction and the effects of climate change on this ecosystem.     

Ecological traits influence the current distribution and range of an island endemic bird

Aim  The aim of this paper is to investigate the causes of the current restricted distribution of a narrow-range endemic bird species, the Canary Islands stonechat, Saxicola dacotiae .
Location  Eastern islands of the Canary Islands archipelago.
Methods  We compared climatic patterns (temperature and rainfall), habitat and microhabitat structure, food availability during a full annual cycle, and the abundance of native avian competitors and predators inside and outside the species' range. Three study areas, located in similar habitats on nearby islands, were studied: northern Fuerteventura, close to the northern border of the species' range; southern Lanzarote, 22 km from the nearest site occupied by stonechats; and the Lobos islet, 10 km from the nearest occupied site and 2 km from the coast of Fuerteventura.
Results  The cover of suitable habitats (slopes with high cover of large shrubs, stony fields and ravines) and microhabitats (shrubs and boulders) and the abundance of arthropods during the breeding period of Canary Islands stonechats were lower outside than inside the species' range. Temperature, rainfall and the abundance of competitors and predators inside and outside the species' range did not differ significantly.
Main conclusions  Ecological requirements explaining the distribution of the Canary Islands stonechat within its range seem to be the main factor hindering its settlement on nearby islands. Geological and palaeoclimatic processes, as well as past and current human impact, could also have constrained the distribution of this narrow-range endemic bird species.     

Abundance decline in the avifauna of the European Union reveals cross‐continental similarities in biodiversity change

Although global assessments provide evidence of biodiversity decline, some have questioned the strength of the evidence, with local assemblage studies often showing a more balanced picture of biodiversity change. The multifaceted nature of biodiversity and imperfect monitoring datasets may partially explain these findings. Here, using an extensive dataset, we find significant biodiversity loss in the native avifauna of the European Union (EU). We estimate a decline of 17–19% in the overall breeding bird abundance since 1980: a loss of 560–620 million individual birds. Both total and proportional declines in bird numbers are high among species associated with agricultural land. The distribution of species’ population growth rates (ln) is centered close to zero, with numerical decline driven by substantial losses in abundant species. Our work supports previous assessments indicating substantial recent biodiversity loss and calls to reduce the threat of extinctions and restore species’ abundances, for the sake of nature and people.     

Global macroecology of bird assemblages in urbanized and semi‐natural ecosystems

Aim Despite the increasing pace of urbanization, little is known about how this process affects biodiversity globally. We investigate macroecological patterns of bird assemblages in urbanized areas relative to semi‐natural ecosystems. Location World‐wide. Methods We use a database of quantitative bird surveys to compare key assemblage structure parameters for plots in urbanized and semi‐natural ecosystems controlling for spatial autocorrelation and survey methodology. We use the term ‘urbanized’ instead of ‘urban’ ecosystems as many of the plots were not located in the centre of towns but in remnant habitat patches within conurbations. Results Some macroecological relationships were conserved in urbanized landscapes. Species–area, species–abundance and species–biomass relationships did not differ significantly between urbanized and non‐urbanized environments. However, there were differences in the relationships between productivity and assemblage structure. In forests, species richness increased with productivity; in both forests and open habitats, the evenness of species abundances declined as productivity increased. Among urbanized plots, instead, both species richness and the evenness of species abundances were independent of variation in productivity. Main conclusions Remnant habitats within urbanized areas are subject to many ecological alterations, yet key macroecological patterns differ remarkably little in urbanized versus non‐urbanized plots. Our results support the need for increased conservation activities in urbanized landscapes, particularly given the additional benefits of local experiences of biodiversity for the human population. With increasing urbanization world‐wide, broad‐scale efforts are needed to understand and manage the effects of this driver of change on biodiversity.     

自然保护地生物多样性保护研究进展

建立自然保护地是保护生物多样性最为重要的措施之一。总体来看, 自然保护地生物多样性保护研究主要围绕关键生态系统以及珍稀濒危物种等保护对象的状态以及变化两个层面进行, 并重点关注自然保护地数量与面积、保护了多少重要生态系统和物种、能否有效保护生物多样性等一系列科学问题。然而, 在自然保护地生物多样性保护研究方面, 还缺少针对上述研究领域的系统性综述。为此, 本文系统梳理了自然保护地空间布局及其与生物多样性分布的关系、自然保护地生物多样性变化及其保护成效等近20年来相关领域的研究进展。自然保护地的空间布局以及与生物多样性分布的关系主要围绕自然保护地与生物多样性在某一阶段的状态开展研究, 致力于探究自然保护地“保护多少” “代表性如何” “在哪儿保护”等一系列关键科学问题。同时, 自然保护地内的生物多样性会随着气候变化、人类活动以及自身演替等发生时空动态变化, 基于自然保护地生物多样性变化分析, 各国学者在全球尺度、国家尺度和单个自然保护地进行了大量的保护成效评估研究, 并逐渐发展出了自然保护地内外配对分析方法以提升保护成效评估的精度, 进而识别出不同自然保护地的主要影响因素。在此基础上, 本文进一步对自然保护地生物多样性保护研究提出了展望, 主要包括: (1)综合考虑自然保护地生物多样性状态和变化; (2)开展多目标协同的自然保护地空间优化布局; (3)强化自然保护地主要保护对象的识别、调查与监测; (4)提升自然保护地的质量和连通性; (5)探究自然保护地管理措施与保护成效的关联机制。本文可为“2020年后全球生物多样性框架”的制定与实施特别是在自然保护地体系建设与优化方面提供参考与借鉴。     

Distribution dynamics of South American savanna birds in response to Quaternary climate change

Several lines of evidence suggest that savannas currently distributed disjointedly in the southern and northern portions of South America might have been connected and disconnected many times during the Quaternary climatic fluctuations. Here, we investigated how climate change since the Last Interglacial may have modified the distribution of bird species associated with South American savannas. We evaluated the connections between South America's savannas using 10 broadly distributed species and the impact of climate changes in community composition using 18 species endemic to Cerrado. We fit ecological niche models to each of the 28 bird species to compare the potential distribution patterns for the Last Interglacial (120 kyr BP), the Last Glacial Maximum (21 kyr BP) and the present. Our results corroborated hypotheses of past connections between northern and southern blocks of savannas through three hypothetical corridors that existed along the Andes, Atlantic Coast and through central Amazonia. In addition, our results also suggested the existence of a fourth plausible corridor located along the Madeira River, crossing Amazonia from the southwest to the northeast. Finally, our analysis showed significant changes in the community composition dynamics of endemic Cerrado species. Our results further reinforce the notion that climate change has major impacts on the distribution of savanna species.     

Contrasting effects of mosaic structure on alpha and beta diversity of bird assemblages in a human‐modified landscape

Habitat loss and fragmentation are key processes causing biodiversity loss in human‐modified landscapes. Knowledge of these processes has largely been derived from measuring biodiversity at the scale of ‘within‐habitat’ fragments with the surrounding landscape considered as matrix. Yet, the loss of variation in species assemblages ‘among’ habitat fragments (landscape‐scale) may be as important a driver of biodiversity loss as the loss of diversity ‘within’ habitat fragments (local‐scale). We tested the hypothesis that heterogeneity in vegetation cover is important for maintaining alpha and beta diversity in human‐modified landscapes. We surveyed bird assemblages in eighty 300‐m‐long transects nested within twenty 1‐km² vegetation ‘mosaics’, with mosaics assigned to four categories defined by the cover extent and configuration of native eucalypt forest and exotic pine plantation. We examined bird assemblages at two spatial scales: 1) within and among transects, and 2) within and among mosaics. Alpha diversity was the mean species diversity within‐transects or within‐mosaics and beta diversity quantified the effective number of compositionally distinct transects or mosaics. We found that within‐transect alpha diversity was highest in vegetation mosaics defined by continuous eucalypt forest, lowest in mosaics of continuous pine plantation, and at intermediate levels in mosaics containing eucalypt patches in a pine matrix. We found that eucalypt mosaics had lower beta diversity than other mosaic types when ignoring relative abundances, but had similar or higher beta diversity when weighting with species abundances. Mosaics containing both pine and eucalypt forest differed in their bird compositional variation among transects, despite sharing a similar suite of species. This configuration effect at the mosaic scale reflected differences in vegetation composition among transects. Maintaining heterogeneity in vegetation cover could help to maintain variation among bird assemblages across landscapes, thus partially offsetting local‐scale diversity losses due to fragmentation. Critical to this is the retention of remnant native vegetation.     

Socio-economic and ecological impacts of global protected area expansion plans

Several global strategies for protected area (PA) expansion have been proposed to achieve the Convention on Biological Diversity''s Aichi target 11 as a means to stem biodiversity loss, as required by the Aichi target 12. However, habitat loss outside PAs will continue to affect habitats and species, and PAs may displace human activities into areas that might be even more important for species persistence. Here we measure the expected contribution of PA expansion strategies to Aichi target 12 by estimating the extent of suitable habitat available for all terrestrial mammals, with and without additional protection (the latter giving the counterfactual outcome), under different socio-economic scenarios and consequent land-use change to 2020. We found that expanding PAs to achieve representation targets for ecoregions under a Business-as-usual socio-economic scenario will result in a worse prognosis than doing nothing for more than 50% of the world''s terrestrial mammals. By contrast, targeting protection towards threatened species can increase the suitable habitat available to over 60% of terrestrial mammals. Even in the absence of additional protection, an alternative socio-economic scenario, adopting progressive changes in human consumption, leads to positive outcomes for mammals globally and to the largest improvements for wide-ranging species.     

Breeding upwards when climate is becoming warmer: no bird response in the French Alps

Altitudinal shifts in distribution were investigated in forest breeding birds, along two elevational gradients in the French northern and southern Alps, from counts repeated at exactly the same locations in the 1970s and the 2000s. Significant shifts were reported for eight of 24 species in the northern alpine site (five downwards, three upwards) and for two of the 17 species in the southern site (one downwards, one upwards). Apart from the Crested Tit Parus cristatus , which shifted significantly downwards at both sites, altitudinal shifts were not significantly correlated between sites. Bird communities did not shift their distribution upwards despite a 2.3 °C increase in spring temperatures in the two study areas. These results suggest that bird distributions by altitude have not yet been affected by climatic warming, and that most specific elevational shifts are probably related to site-specific factors.     

A macroecological approach to evolutionary rescue and adaptation to climate change

Despite the widespread use of ecological niche models (ENMs) for predicting the responses of species to climate change, these models do not explicitly incorporate any population‐level mechanism. On the other hand, mechanistic models adding population processes (e.g. biotic interactions, dispersal and adaptive potential to abiotic conditions) are much more complex and difficult to parameterize, especially if the goal is to predict range shifts for many species simultaneously. In particular, the adaptive potential (based on genetic adaptations, phenotypic plasticity and behavioral adjustments for physiological responses) of local populations has been a less studied mechanism affecting species’ responses to climatic change so far. Here, we discuss and apply an alternative macroecological framework to evaluate the potential role of evolutionary rescue under climate change based on ENMs. We begin by reviewing eco‐evolutionary models that evaluate the maximum sustainable evolutionary rate under a scenario of environmental change, showing how they can be used to understand the impact of temperature change on a Neotropical anuran species, the Schneider's toad Rhinella diptycha. Then we show how to evaluate spatial patterns of species’ geographic range shift using such models, by estimating evolutionary rates at the trailing edge of species distribution estimated by ENMs and by recalculating the relative amount of total range loss under climate change. We show how different models can reduce the expected range loss predicted for the studied species by potential ecophysiological adaptations in some regions of the trailing edge predicted by ENMs. For general applications, we believe that parameters for large numbers of species and populations can be obtained from macroecological generalizations (e.g. allometric equations and ecogeographical rules), so our framework coupling ENMs with eco‐evolutionary models can be applied to achieve a more accurate picture of potential impacts from climate change and other threats to biodiversity.