Modelling the Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Arboreal Diversity of the University of British Columbia Vancouver Campus from 2050 to 2080

The University of British Columbia (UBC) seeks to identify vulnerable tree species on campus and apply strategies for sustaining arboreal diversity in future decades. In contribution to these efforts, this study investigated the potential shift in tree composition on the UBC Vancouver Campus over the next century by (1) predicting suitable climatic habitat for 128 campus species in 2050 and 2080, and (2) mapping the expected change in species richness across North America.

Species observation data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and climate predictors from ClimateNA were used to perform MaxEnt species distribution modelling. The climatic baseline (1961-1990) range for each tree species was defined using average annual temperature and precipitation, and projected using RCP 8.5 climate scenarios for 2050 (2041-2070) and 2080 (2071-2100). This dataset contains all geoprocessing scripts, species range and diversity maps for the baseline year, 2050 and 2080, as well as model outputs for each tree species.