Authors: Fourcade, Yoan; Sonntag, Sylvain;WallisDeVries, Michiel F;Kuussaari, Mikko;van Swaay, Chris A M;Heliölä, Janne;Öckinger, Erik;

Climate change often make species to shift their range so that they remain in their climatic niche. However, the intensity of climate change, the intrinsic dispersal ability of species and the anthropization of landscapes can impede species movements. In this context, preserving and promoting climate corridors for species to migrate from their current habitats to their future climatically similar habitats is an important strategy for preventing species extinction. We modelled connectivity between climate analogues across Europe under various ecological assumptions and future climate change scenarios, in order to identify areas of high potential connectivity and to quantify variation in connectivity across a range of hypotheses. We also overlapped connectivity maps with protected areas to determine whether climate connectivity was sufficiently protected. We showed that climatic connectivity did not differ much between different scenarios of climate change, but was strongly dependent on species’ dispersal assumptions. Next, we constructed models that depict climate connectivity between observed climate analogues during the past decades, and confronted them to empirical changes in butterfly communities. Overall, our results have the potential to serve in the construction of land cover change scenarios to identify the best strategies to improve climate connectivity.