Climatic change, refugia, and biodiversity: where do we go from here? An editorial comment

Abstract Climate change in the coming century will affect biodiversity at many biological levels, ranging from ecosystems to genes. Forecasting the effects of these changes, especially in the context of which species will be restricted to refugia and/or prone to extinction, is taking on increasing importance. Enhanced integration of phylogeography with phylochronology, paleontological and geological data, and climate science (especially taking into account scales of climate change other than orbitally-induced glacial– interglacial cycles) is needed to more fully appreciate the genetic effects of past climate changes, and to help predict future fates of species. In this issue, an exchange by Stewart and Dalén (2008) and Pruett and Winker (2008) high-lights an emerging problem: how will accelerated rates of climatic change over the next hundred years (IPCC 2007) influence the generation and maintenance of biodiversity? And how will we know? The differing opinions of the respective authors arise from Pruett and Winker’s (2005) interpretation of how so-called ‘cryptic refugia ’ in Beringia (the contiguous land mass that connects Siberia and Alaska when sea level falls during glacial times) led to the geneti