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Climate-driven changes in wetland hydroperiods predict losses in habitat suitability for amphibian breeding

Griffin C Dare·Maureen E. Ryan·Se-Yeun Lee·Leithen K. M'Gonigle·Rebecca M. McCaffery·Alan F. Hamlet·Michael J. Adams·Wendy J. Palen
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Abstract

Environmental regimes are shifting with accelerating climate change, disrupting interactions between species and ecosystems shaped by the climate of the pre-industrial era. Species assemblages that depend on a dynamic network of ephemeral and permanent habitats may be especially sensitive to changing climate, whereby shifting environmental regimes may limit species persistence in landscapes in ways not captured by species physiology or coarse habitat metrics alone. Here we forecasted the loss of montane and subalpine wetlands as breeding habitat for three amphibian species in the US Pacific Northwest, Ambystoma gracile , Ambystoma macrodactylum , and Rana cascadae . We combined historical and recent surveys to build occupancy models of current breeding habitat use. We combined these results with existing hydrological models to predict the loss of suitable breeding habitats by the 2080s due to increased wetland drying. We found that species-specific occupancy of wetlands used for reproduction was predicted by both abiotic (e.g., elevation, wetland area) and biotic (e.g., emergent vegetation) site-level characteristics. Among wetlands currently used for reproduction, we estimated that between 12% and 23% could become unsuitable for the aquatic phase of each species by the 2080s, with watershed-scale losses ranging from 0% to 80%. This suggests that wetland habitat loss could limit the persistence of these species in the Pacific Northwest, though impacts are expected to vary across landscapes. More broadly, we demonstrate a novel approach to quantifying species climate change vulnerability that can be used to identify areas of both risk and resilience in changing landscapes and help to prioritize the application of practical conservation solutions in areas of greatest need.

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90° N90° S · 180° W ← longitude → 180° E
Source-reported bounding extent: 46.629776486093476° to 48.21848481984193° latitude; -124.11089948912442° to -121.40827558267807° longitude. This indicates report coverage, not an exact sampling location. View area on OpenStreetMap.

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Griffin C Dare, Maureen E. Ryan, Se-Yeun Lee, Leithen K. M'Gonigle, Rebecca M. McCaffery, Alan F. Hamlet, Michael J. Adams, Wendy J. Palen. 2026-09-15. Climate-driven changes in wetland hydroperiods predict losses in habitat suitability for amphibian breeding. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70763

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