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12 CLIMATE CHANGE ALBERTAS BIODIVERSITY Developing adaptive solutions to the challenges posed to Albertas biodiversity by a changing climate first requires understanding how climate change might affect species and ecosystem distributions and abundances. The BMCCA project used three main approaches to assess these potential impacts ecological niche models see below to develop spatial predictions of the potential distributions of species and ecosystems under changed future conditions speciesassessmentsusingNatureServes ClimateChangeVulnerabilityIndex CCVI10 todeterminetherelativeclimate changevulnerabilityofAlbertasspeciesand field research on the effects of weather on mortality and reproduction of selected species. These three different approaches produced mutually insightful results. Ecological niche models predict where a species or ecosystem could potentially exist in the future but by themselves do not address whether species are actually capable of dispersing into and thriving in new climatically suitable areas. By contrast relative vulnerability assessments identify a species vulnerability within its current range and provide insights into the traits that are most important in determining vulnerability but do not incorporate potential shifts in range. The combination of these two approaches to evaluate the potential impacts of climate change on species can provide insight that is both ecologically and spatially relevant. Field research provides empirical evidence as to how species react to current weather allowing enhanced predictions of the popula- tion effects of future climate and identification of potential management responses. ECOLOGICAL NICHE MODELS Ecologicalnichemodelingistheprocessofpredictingthedistributionofspeciesor ecosystemsbasedoncorrelationsbetweenenvironmentalconditionse.g.climaticvariables soilcharacteristicsetc.andspeciesorecosystemoccurrence.Thistechniqueisalsoknown asspeciesdistributionmodelingorbioclimaticenvelopemodeling.Modelsthataredeveloped todescribethecurrentdistributionorabundanceofspeciesorecosystemsarecombinedwith projectionsoffutureclimatetoprojectfuturedistributionsandsometimesabundance underchangedclimaticconditions. Scientistsmakeavarietyofassumptionswhentheyuseecologicalnichemodelstoproject futurespeciesorecosystemdistributionsincludingassumptionsaboutwhataspectsof climateareimportanttothedistributionthequalityandquantityofthedatausedtodevelop themodelspage22thecurrentandfutureavailabilityofsuitablehabitatandtheabilityof speciestodisperseinresponsetochangedconditionsamongothers. 10 For more information httpwww.natureserve.orgconservation-toolsclimate-change-vulnerability-index