Biological interactions: The overlooked aspects of marine climate change refugia

Abstract

Climate change refugia are currently considered an inseparable part of biological conservation in both marine and terrestrial ecosystems. However, our understanding of marine refugia effectiveness remains limited despite many valuable efforts made in recent years. Certain studies have suggested criteria to assess potential marine climate change refugia (e.g., Kavousi & Keppel, 2018), while others proposed specific refugia to conserve (e.g. Cacciapaglia & van Woesik, 2016 and references therein). While I acknowledge that determining the most effective marine climate change refugia is an urgent necessary action to protect marine biota, I propose that ruling out biological interactions may result in far less accurate estimations of the effectiveness of potential long‐term refugia and short‐term refuges (defined by Keppel et al., 2012) for marine species, which could subsequently lead to overly optimistic ecosystem management strategies.