Climate refugia along Lake Superior’s shores: disjunct arctic-alpine plants rely on cool shoreline temperatures but are restricted to highly exposed habitat under climate warming

Abstract

Climate refugia can serve as remnant habitat or stepping stones for species dispersal under climate warming. The largest freshwater lake by surface area, Lake Superior, USA and Canada, serves as a model system for understanding cooling-mediated local refugia, as its cool water temperatures and wave action have maintained shoreline habitats suitable for southern disjunct populations of arctic-alpine plants since deglaciation. Here we seek to explain spatial patterns and environmental drivers of arctic-alpine plant refugia along Lake Superior’s shores, and assess future risk to refugia under moderate (+3.5 °C) and warmest (+5.7 °C) climate warming scenarios. First, we examined how the interactive effects of summer surface water temperatures and wind affected onshore temperatures, resulting in areas of cooler refugia. Second, we developed an ecological niche model for presence of disjunct arctic-alpine refugia (pooling 1253 occurrences from 58 species) along the lake’s shoreline. Third, we fit species distribution models for 20 of the most common arctic-alpine disjunct species and predicted presence to identify refugia hotspots. Finally, we used the two climate warming scenarios to predict changes in presence of refugia and disjunct hotspots. Bedrock type, elevation above water, inland distance, July land surface temperature from MODIS/Terra satellite, and near-shore depth of water were the best predictors of disjunct occurrences. Overall, we predicted 2,236 km of the shoreline (51%) as disjunct refugia habitat for at least one species under current conditions, but this was reduced to 20% and 7% with moderate (894 km) and warmest (313 km) climate change projections.