Species occupying semi-arid and dry regions around the globe face an uncertain future due to increases in the frequency and severity of droughts. In this study we modelled the potential effect of climate change on bat communities within two high-drought risk regions of the world and assessed the magnitude and direction of the predicted shifts in climatic suitability, locating climate change refugia and identifying species at greatest risk of population declines. To do this, we compared climate suitability models for 43 species using three global climate models and three emissions scenarios for current (1950-2000) and future (2061-2080) climates within two regions where droughts are predicted to increase, the Western Palaearctic and Western North America. Our models predicted an overall reduction in bat richness with future climates. Areas projected to support high species richness in the current climate coincided with greatest predicted species loss and greatest future drought risk. For species with the potential to extend their range, high velocity range shifts would be required to keep pace with these changes, particularly in the Western Palaearctic, where additional barriers to movement include seas and high human population density areas. Predicted refugial zones were limited and occurred in similar areas across continents (montane and high latitude with some coastal areas). The area of climate suitability was predicted to contract for around half of study species, with nine identified as species of conservation concern due to low overlap between current and future modelled ranges. The best-case scenario for bat diversity in semi-arid and dry regions in the future is likely to be reduced species richness, with many species facing rapid range expansion over challenging landscapes to access climatically suitable areas. Conservation of bats in high drought risk regions will likely depend on protection of identified refugia and networks of water sources, as well as global measures to protect biodiversity and human wellbeing, such as reduction in global carbon emissions.

Please see our open access article for detailed methods supporting this dataset. Piccioli Cappelli, M., Blakey, R. V, Taylor, D., Flanders, J., Badeen, T., Butts, S., Frick, W.F. & Rebelo, H. (2021) Limited refugia and high velocity range-shifts predicted for bat communities in drought-risk areas of the Northern Hemisphere. Global Ecology and Conservation, e01608. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2021.e01608

This dataset includes raster files from Figures 1 & 2, and Supplementary S2 and S3.1-43, as well as tablular data used to construct Table 1 and Figs. 3 & 4 in the publication Piccioli Cappelli, M., Blakey, R. V, Taylor, D., Flanders, J., Badeen, T., Butts, S., Frick, W.F. & Rebelo, H. (2021) Limited refugia and high velocity range-shifts predicted for bat communities in drought-risk areas of the Northern Hemisphere. Global Ecology and Conservation, e01608. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2021.e01608.

Rasters are all in WGS84 latitude longitude. They are named with the prefix "WP" for Western Palaearctic and "WN" for Western North America, with Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) (RCP 2.6, RCP 6.0 and RCP 8.5) named as "2.6", "6.0" and "8.5" and the Global Climate Models (GCMs) are labelled as: "CCM4", "HadGEM2-ES", and "MIROC-ESM". All current predictions of bioclimatic envelope are for the 1950-2000 period and all future predictions of bioclimatic envelope are for the 2061-2080 time period. A summary of these data is below:

Table 1. A table (.csv) with 11 columns including continent (Western Palaearctic and Western North America), Family, Species, spcode (5-letter species code), status (IUCN status, as of 19th December, 2019), pop (Population trend according to IUCN, as of 19th December, 2019), top_precip (precipitation variable explaining the most modelled variability), pc_precip (proportion of variability explained by top_precip), top_temp (temperature variable explaining the most modelled variability), pc_temp (proportion of variability explained by top_temp), AUC (AUC of top model for species). Filename = "Table1.csv".

Fig. 1. Two multilayer geotiff rasters including 10 layers each for predicted species richness (rich) predicted refugia (stable) and percent turnover (turn) of species (RCP 2.6, RCP 6.0 and RCP 8.5) in Western Palaearctic and Western North America. Filenames =

"PRED_WP.tif": bands("rich_pres",  "rich_2.6",   "rich_6.0",   "rich_8.5",   "stable_2.6", "stable_6.0", "stable_8.5", "turn_2.6",   "turn_6.0", "turn_8.5"). 

"PRED_NA.tif": bands ("rich_pres",  "rich_2.6",   "rich_6.0",   "rich_8.5",   "stable_2.6", "stable_6.0", "stable_8.5", "turn_2.6",   "turn_6.0", "turn_8.5").

Fig. 2. Two multilayer geotiff rasters including three layers each (RCP 2.6, RCP 6.0 and RCP 8.5) showing refugial zones where all species retain climatic suitabilitiy into 2061-2080 in Western Palaearctic and Western North America. Filenames =

"REFU_WP.tif": bands("refu_2.6",   "refu_6.0",   "refu_8.5"). 

"REFU_WN.tif": bands("refu_2.6",   "refu_6.0",   "refu_8.5"). 

Fig. 3 & 4 A table (.csv) with 9 columns including: spcode (5-letter species code corresponding to species in Table 1), scenario (RCP 2.6, RCP 6.0 and RCP 8.5), continent (Western Palaearctic and Western North America), IUCN_status (as of 19th December, 2019), azimuth_degrees (direction of predicted range shift), distance_km (distance of predicted range shift), remaining_suitable_area_pc (percentage of remaining suitable area) and variation_occupied_area_pc (percentage variation in occupied area) for 43 bat species. Filename = "Fig3_4.csv".

Appendix S2. Two multilayer geotiff rasters, each with three layers (RCP 2.6, RCP 6.0 and RCP 8.5) showing averaged Multivariate Environmental Similarity Surfaces (MESS) maps for study areas in Western Palaearctic and Western North America for three Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP). These were averaged across three GCMs (CCM4, HadGEM2-ES, and MIROC-ESM). Filenames =

"MESS_WP.tif": bands ("MESS_RCP26", "MESS_RCP60", "MESS_RCP85"),

"MESS_WN.tif": bands ("MESS_RCP26", "MESS_RCP60", "MESS_RCP85").

Appendix S3. 43 Multilayer geotiff rasters, each with 10 layers show predicted current and future potential climatic niche for 43 species in Western Palaearctic (n=24) and Western US (n=19) based on our models using 3 GCMs (CCM4, HadGEM2-ES, and MIROC-ESM) and three climate scenarios (RCP 2.6, 6.0 and 8.5). Note that all datasets, including the “current” climatic niche show potential rather than realised niche. For example, Rhinolophus blasii and Myotis punicus have not been reported in the Iberian Peninsula and Myotis capaccinii has not been reported in Portugal. Current raster values correspond to 0 = unsuitable, 1 = suitable. Predicted raster values correspond to: 0 = unsuitable, 1 = contraction, 2 = expansion, 3 = retained. Filenames = 

Western Palaearctic: "Bar_bar", "Ept_isa", "Ept_ser", "Min_sch", "Myo_bec", "Myo_bly", "Myo_cap",  "Myo_ema", "Myo_esc", "Myo_myo", "Myo_pun", "Nyc_las", "Nyc_noc", "Pip_kuh", "Pip_nat", "Pip_pip", "Ple_aus", "Ple_beg", "Rhi_bla", "Rhi_eur", "Rhi_fer", "Rhi_hip", "Rhi_meh", "Tad_ten".

Western North America: "ant_pal", "cho_mex" "cor_tow", "eud_mac", "eum_per", "idi_phy", "las_blo", "las_xan", "lep_niv", "lep_yer", "mac_cal", "myo_cal", "myo_occ", "myo_thy", "myo_vel", "nyc_fem", "nyc_mac", "pip_hes", "tad_bra".

Every species is a multi-layered geotiff with the following 10 layers: "current", "RCP2.6_CCSM4", "RCP2.6_HadGEM2_ES",   "RCP2.6_MIROC_ESM" , "RCP6.0_CCSM4", "RCP6.0_HadGEM2_ES",  "RCP6.0_MIROC_ESM",  "RCP8.5_CCSM4",      "RCP8.5_HadGEM2_ES", "RCP8.5_MIROC_ESM".