Climate change reduces resilience to fire in subalpine rainforests

Abstract

Climate change is affecting the distribution of species and the functioning of ecosystems. For species that are slow growing and poorly dispersed, climate change can force a lag between the distributions of species and the geographic distributions of their climatic envelopes, exposing species to the risk of extinction. Climate also governs the resilience of species and ecosystems to disturbance, such as wildfire. Here we use species distribution modelling and palaeoecology to assess and test the impact of vegetation–climate disequilibrium on the resilience of an endangered fire-sensitive rainforest community to fires. First, we modelled the probability of occurrence of Athrotaxis spp. and No..