The impact of future climate change on global reptile diversity and distributions is a topic of concern. The potential effects on species range, position, and overlap across lizards, snakes, and turtles could result in a significant decrease in reptile richness around the world. When combined with other anthropogenic factors such as habitat loss and species harvesting, the situation is even more alarming. Given the lack of historical data on global reptile distributions, there is a need to re-evaluate global reptile conservation efforts, with a focus on the anticipated impact of climate change in the future.

Biber et al. (2023) modeled the distribution of 6296 reptile species to assess potential changes in species richness, global and realm-specific, and species-specific changes in range extent, overlap, and position due to climate change. For the 3768 range-restricted species that could not be modeled, the study compared the future change in climatic conditions between modeled and non-modeled species to assess the impact of future climate change. The results indicate a significant global decline in reptile richness and most zoogeographical realms, with the largest decreases projected for Brazil, Australia, and South Africa. Reptile species richness was highest in warm and moist regions, projected to shift toward climate extremes. Range extents were also projected to decline considerably, with a low overlap between current and future ranges. The study found a dominant poleward shift in range centroids among realms and taxa. Furthermore, non-modeled species were significantly more affected by projected climatic changes than modeled species.

As climate change continues, reptile populations worldwide are expected to decline significantly, impacting lizards, snakes, and turtles alike. This and other human-caused threats such as habitat destruction and species harvesting are alarming. There has been limited understanding of global reptile distributions in the past, so conservation efforts must be re-evaluated, with a particular focus on anticipated climate change impacts.

Citation

Biber MF, Voskamp A, Hof C. 2023. Potential effects of future climate change on global reptile distributions and diversity. Global Ecology and Biogeography. 2023 Apr 1.