IX Italian congress of Mammalogy

The effects of recent climate change on mammals are increasingly well documented, and a large number of methods have been developed to predict the potential impacts of further climate change in the coming decades. A variety of studies have demonstrated that species displaying certain ecological and life history traits (e.g. low dispersal, large body mass, low reproductive rates) are more vulnerable to extinction based to climate change than others. Despite these efforts, little is known about how to represent species vulnerability to climate change due to biological traits. Here we present a framework for assessing three components of vulnerability: exposure, sensitivity and adaptability. We developed two indices for each Italian terrestrial non-volant mammal (64 species) by considering a) life history traits which make a species more sensitive and less adaptable to climate change, and b) the areas with the greatest exposure (differences between current and projected future climate) by