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Predicted impacts of climate change on wild and commercial berry habitats will have food security, conservation and agricultural implications

Hirabayashi, Kaede1; Murch, Susan J.1; Erland, Lauren A. E.1

Research facility: University of British Columbia
Published Nov 11, 2025 on Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.mw6m905zf

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Abstract

Climate change is now a reality and is altering ecosystems, with Canada experiencing 2-4x the global average rate of warming. This will have a critical impact on berry cultivation and horticulture as well as wild, traditional and country food species. Enhancing our understanding of how wild and cultivated berries will be essential to mitigating impacts on ecosystems, culture and food security. Our objective was to predict the impact of climate change on habitat suitability of four berry producing Vaccinium species: two species with primarily northern distributions (V. uliginosum, V. vitis-idaea) and one species with a primarily southern distribution (V. oxycoccos) and the commercially cultivated V. macrocarpon. We used the maximum entropy (maxent) model and the CMIP6 shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) 126 and 585 projected to 2041-2060 and 2061-2080. Wild species showed a uniform northward progression and expansion of suitable habitat. Our modeling predicts that suitable growing regions for commercial cranberries is also likely to shift with some farms becoming unsuitable for the current varieties and other regions becoming more suitable for cranberry farms. Both V. macrocarpon and V. oxycoccos showed a high dependence on precipitation associated variables. V. vitis-idaea and V. uliginosum had a greater number of variables with smaller contributions which may improve their resilience to individual climactic events. Future competition between commercial cranberry farms and wild berries in protected areas could lead to conflicts between agriculture and conservation priorities. New varieties of commercial berries are required to maintain current commercial berry farms.