RAMP: A Tool for Quickly Determining a Species Current and Potential Climate Envelopes

Predicting a species climate envelope can be important to both native species conservation and estimating risk of invasive species.  RAMP provides a simple tool to map the climate envelope for any species in both current and potential future conditions.  Species location information is acquired from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).  This location information is used to pre-select climate stations which would be used for the match.  The user can then add and remove stations at will.  Once a suitable set of climate stations are selected a match can be performed.  RAMP produces maps and scores of the climate match.  That information is useful for projecting whether, and where, an invasive species is at risk of establishing self-sustaining populations or a threatened species climate envelope will shift under future climate conditions.  Future climate conditions are modeled for North America using three IPCC Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5) over two periods (2050 and 2080).  RAMP products are intended to help support decisions for regulatory and non-regulatory approaches to enhancing protection of the biosecurity of the U.S. with respect to invasive species. For threatened and endangered native species, predictive climate envelope mapping could be used for decision making for recovery.