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<dd>Carroll, M. J., B. J. Anderson, T. M. Brereton, S. J. Knight, O.
Kudrna, and C. D. Thomas. 2009. Climate change and translocations: The
potential to re-establish two regionally-extinct butterfly species in
Britain Biological Conservation <b>142</b>:2114-2121.<br><br>
</dl><font face="Arial, Helvetica">Climate change is causing many
organisms to migrate to track climatically-suitable habitat. In many
cases, this will happen naturally, but in others, human intervention may
be necessary in the form of ‘assisted colonisation’. Species
re-establishments in suitable parts of their historic ranges provide an
opportunity to conserve some species and to test ideas about assisted
colonisation. Here, bioclimatic models of the distributions of two
extinct British butterflies, Aporia crataegi and Polyommatus semiargus,
were used to investigate the potential for re-establishment in Britain.
Generalised additive models and generalised linear models were created to
describe the species’ European distributions for the period 19611990. All
models projected the British climate during this period to be suitable
for both species. Thirty-year climate projections for the periods
19912020 and 20212050, and for three climate change scenarios, were then
put into the models to generate projections of climatic suitability
throughout the 21st century. British climate was projected to remain
highly suitable for A. crataegi, but to decline somewhat for P.
semiargus. Southern and eastern Britain were found to be the areas most
likely to support suitable climate. This difference between the species
appeared to be due in part to decreasing summer rainfall in climate
change projections, as this should only benefit A. crataegi. It is
concluded that, with further study of habitat requirements, both species
could be reintroduced to Britain as part of a long-term European
conservation strategy.</font></body>
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