Replicated landscape genetic and network analyses reveal wide variation in functional connectivity for American pikas.

Landscape connectivity is essential for maintaining viable populations, particularly for species restricted to fragmented habitats or naturally arrayed in metapopulations and facing rapid climate change. The importance of assessing both structural connectivity (physical distribution of favorable habitat patches) and functional connectivity (how species move among habitat patches) for managing such species is well understood. However, the degree to which functional connectivity for a species varies among landscapes, and the resulting implications for conservation, have rarely been assessed.

Habitat availability and gene flow influence diverging local population trajectories under scenarios of climate change: a place-based approach.

Ecological niche theory holds that species distributions are shaped by a large and complex suite of interacting factors. Species distribution models (SDMs) are increasingly used to describe species' niches and predict the effects of future environmental change, including climate change. Currently, SDMs often fail to capture the complexity of species' niches, resulting in predictions that are generally limited to climate-occupancy interactions.