Climate Change and Biodiversity Hotspots: Patterns of Adaptation, Resilience, and Species Loss

Abstract

Abstract Biodiversity hotspots possess large numbers of endemic species in landscapes already threatened by extreme habitat loss. This review highlights how climate change is altering vulnerability, adaptation, resilience and species-loss risk across selected global hotspots, and suggests conservation responses that can reduce risk under present scenario of global warming.A narrative review was undertaken using peer-reviewed articles, major assessment reports and conservation-agency documents published mainly between 2000 and 2026, with emphasis on post-2015 literature. Selection of sources was on the basis of the following key themes: relevance to hotspot criteria, climate exposure, endemic-species vulnerability, climate refugia, ecological connectivity, regional case evidence and policy responses. The case studies were selectively chosen to exemplify tropical forests, islands, temperate and Mediterranean systems, semi-arid woodlands, coastal and marine interfaces, and heavily transformed mountain and river-basin landscapes. The analysis shows that hotspot vulnerability is highest where restricted-range endemism, habitat fragmentation, strong climatic exposure and limited adaptive capacity coincide. Endemic plants, amphibians, reptiles, island species, corals and other habitat specialists are especially sensitive because they often combine narrow ecological niches with low dispersal potential. Across the Amazon and Guianas, Amur-Heilong, Coastal East Africa, Madagascar, the Mediterranean Basin, Miombo woodlands, Southwest Australia, the Yangtze Basin and Indian hotspots, climate change intensifies existing threats by shifting climatic envelopes, increasing drought and fire, altering trophic interactions, increasing disease and invasion risk, and reducing the reliability of ecosystem services. Climate refugia, ecological corridors, restoration and community-based management emerge as recurring resilience mechanisms.Protecting biodiversity hotspots under climate change requires climate-smart protected-area design, landscape and seascape connectivity, fine-scale refugia protection, rapid greenhouse-gas mitigation, ecosystem restoration, ex situ safeguards for highly restricted species, and equitable governance involving local and Indigenous communities. The value of the hotspot framework therefore lies not only in identifying irreplaceable biodiversity, but also in guiding integrated adaptation and conservation action in a rapidly changing world.