Résumé

While there is a clear demand for scenarios that provide alternative states in biodiversity withrespect to future emissions, a thorough analysis and communication of the associateduncertainties is still missing. Here, we modelled the global distribution of ~11,500 amphibian,bird and mammal species and project their climatic suitability into the time horizon 2050 and2070, while varying the input data used. By this, we explore the uncertainties originatingfrom selecting species distribution models (SDMs), dispersal strategies, global circulationmodels (GCMs), and representative concentration pathways (RCPs). We demonstrate theoverwhelming influence of SDMs and RCPs on future biodiversity projections, followed bydispersal strategies and GCMs. The relative importance of each component varies in spacebut also with the selected sensitivity metrics and with species’range size. Overall, thismeans using multiple SDMs, RCPs, dispersal assumptions and GCMs is a necessity in anybiodiversity scenario assessment, to explicitly report associated uncertainties.

Citation : Thuiller, W., Guéguen, M., Renaud, J., Karger, D.N., & Zimmermann, N.E. (2019) Uncertainty in ensembles of global biodiversity scenarios. Nature Communications. 10:1146