Predicting species and community responses to global change in Australian mountain ecosystems using structured expert judgement

Conservation managers are under increasing pressure to make decisions about the allocation of finite resources to protect biodiversity under a changing climate. However, the impacts of climate and global change drivers on species are outpacing our capacity to collect the empirical data necessary to inform these decisions. This is particularly the case in the Australian Alps which has already undergone recent changes in climate and experienced more frequent large-scale bushfires. In lieu of empirical data, we used a structured expert elicitation method (the IDEA protocol) to estimate the abundance and distribution of nine vegetation groups and 89 Australian alpine and subalpine species by the year 2050. Experts predicted that most alpine vegetation communities would decline in extent by 2050; only woodlands and heathlands were predicted to increase in extent. Predicted species-level responses for alpine plants and animals were highly variable and uncertain. In general, alpine plants spanned the range of possible responses, with some expected to increase, decrease or not change in cover. By contrast, almost all animal species were predicted to decline or not change in abundance or elevation range; more species with water-centric life-cycles were expected to decline in abundance than other species. In the face of rapid change and a paucity of data, the method and outcomes outlined here provide a pragmatic and coherent basis upon which to start informing conservation policy and management, although this approach does not diminish the importance of collecting long-term ecological data. Article Impact Statement Expert knowledge is used to quantify the adaptive capacity and thus, the risk posed by global change, to Australian mountain flora and fauna.