NORTH CAROLINA—Forest animals may need help to survive climate change (drought, flooding, heat) and humans moving into former wildlands.

They need a livable corridor or pathway—with shade, food and water—to protect them on their journey to a suitable habitat.

In an article published in Biological Conservation, Southern Research Station scientist Jennifer K. Costanza and colleagues studied pathways available to three species in need of conservation in the southeastern U.S.: the timber rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus), American black bear (Ursus americanus), and Rafinesque’s big-eared bat (Corynorhinus rafinesquii).

The different animals face different challenges. Even though their current habitats are similar, changes in climate and land development will affect their corridors differently.

The scientists modeled and mapped each species' pathways. Then they laid those maps over maps of potential changes in temperature, precipitation and human uses of land.

The snake fared best in the study's models. Many of its corridors in mountain and northern regions of the southeast are expected to be less harmed by climate change.

But most pathways for the bat face big threats. Almost half of its paths have a high danger of both climate change and suburban sprawl and have little protection. If their corridors aren't protected, scientists and technicians may have to transport them to safer ground or breed them in captivity and release them in the wild.

Like the bat's, most of the bear's important linking paths have high climate change threat and little protection. The authors recommend conservationists consider protecting alternative corridors.

Linkages that may be more climate-stable than the surrounding landscape will save lives if they can be protected from human development, the researchers wrote.

“In a lot of cases, climate wasn't the top threat for the connectivity we mapped,” Costanza says. “It was land-use change.” In the southeast, suburban expansion is the biggest land-use change causing loss of wildlife habitat.

For more information, email jennifer.costanza@usda.gov.