Detecting marine climate change refugia using “physiological seascapes”

Climate change is reshaping biodiversity globally, but not uniformly. Many regions are severely impacted by losses, yet areas and habitats of varying scales exist where climate change impacts are expected to remain comparatively low. The identification and forecasting of such areas, termed climate change refugia, represents conservation capacity for improving resilience of natural and managed ecosystems. However, we still lack methods for detecting and integrating refugia into spatial management plans that incorporate physiological information, especially in marine environments. We offer a new framework to bridge the gap between large-scale environmental modelling and individual- to species-level physiology to identify current and future ocean refugia for biological conservation. We introduce the concept of the “physiological seascape”, which integrates spatial-temporal heterogeneity in climatic drivers, stability and uniqueness of those drivers at organism-relevant scales, and direct and indirect assessments of physiological sensitivity. We provide two theoretical exploratory examples and recommend that mapping the intersection of refugia and biodiversity become part of priority setting within spatial conservation instruments (e.g., as part of cumulative effects assessments), to inform climate-ready biodiversity conservation and restoration actions.