Abstracts

The impacts of climate change on Australian reptiles

by Abigail Cabrelli

Climate change is anticipated to develop into one of the most significant threats to biodiversity this century. Reptiles are expected to be particularly vulnerable, yet they have received less attention in the climate change literature than some other taxonomic groups. In this thesis, I addressed this knowledge gap by investigating the impacts of climate change on the reptiles of Australia. In the first part of this thesis, I reviewed the published literature to assess why reptiles may be particularly vulnerable to climate change, and whether they have already started to respond in Australia. In the second part, I developed novel frameworks for evaluating the climate change vulnerability of three groups of reptiles - the elapid snakes, the skinks and the freshwater turtles - which integrated the output of environmental niche models and species ecological traits. In the final part, I performed a conservation planning exercise to identify areas within Australia that are important for reptile conservation, and remain important under future climate change. The results of this work were used to determine the species likely to be most vulnerable to climate change, and identify areas that may be particularly valuable additions to the existing National Reserve System.