Are wildlife refuges habitat islands surrounded by inhospitable land?

What is it about?

As the environment changes, wildlife often must move to be able to change with it. We examined whether US National Wildlife Refuges were sufficiently connected to surrounding habitat to allow wildlife to move as the environment changed. We evaluated two scenarios of future land change, one a continuation of historical land cover change, another focusing on increased food production (as human population growth continues). We found that forest cover and urban growth around refuges was expected to increase under both scenarios, whereas the extent of rangeland and pasture was expected to decline. Under the pro-agriculture scenario, valuable production in agricultural systems precluded expected increases in forest.

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Why is it important?

Increasing greenhouse emissions is altering the climate globally and nationally. Within the US, the network of refuge lands devoted to wildlife conservation and management operated by the US Fish and Wildlife Service may find their task made more difficult by this changing climate. Species living within these refuges may need to move to new habitat as the environment changes. We found that that movement could be impacted by decreasing amounts of wild habitat, particularly under a scenario of increased food production.