Summary:
Rising environmental variability across Canada is changing where conservation efforts may be most effective, according to new research published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. Scientists from the University of British Columbia Okanagan (UBCO) mapped four decades of environmental change using daily satellite vegetation data from 1981 to 2025, producing the first national assessment of how unpredictable ecosystems have become.
The study focuses on environmental stochasticity, the degree to which conditions fluctuate unpredictably over time. Results show that this variability has increased steadily across the country and is unevenly distributed. Regions with higher instability tend to support fewer plant and animal species, even when overall productivity is taken into account.
The analysis also reveals a disconnect between conservation planning and emerging climate pressures. Areas currently protected are not consistently those that offer the most stable conditions for biodiversity. Researchers identify about 2,709,580 km² of unprotected land that combines relatively stable and productive environments, suggesting these areas could strengthen Canada’s conservation network as climate pressures intensify.
— Press Release —
Canada’s protected areas were built for the past; research shows they may not support the future
Climate change is making Canada’s seasons more erratic, its weather more extreme and its ecosystems less predictable – and UBC Okanagan scientists have now produced the first national map of exactly where that unpredictability is hitting hardest.
Their findings, published in the Nature Portfolio journal Communications Earth & Environment, reveal a troubling mismatch: the regions best shielded from climate chaos are among the least protected by Canada’s national network of parks and conservation areas.
“We’ve been calling this ‘predicting the unpredictable,’” says Dr. Michael J. Noonan, assistant professor of biology and head of UBCO’s Quantitative Ecology Lab.
“Some parts of Canada tend to be relatively stable year after year, while others swing wildly. What we’ve shown is that this pattern of instability has real, measurable consequences for biodiversity. And our protected areas weren’t designed with any of this in mind.”
The research team, including master’s student Rekha Marcus, doctoral student Stefano Mezzini and undergraduate student Dwija Desai, analyzed more than four decades of daily satellite vegetation data stretching from 1981 to 2025.
Using this record (the longest and most detailed of its kind applied to Canada as a whole) they built precise, location-by-location estimates of how unpredictable environmental conditions have become across the country’s roughly 9.8 million square kilometres of land.
The technical term for this unpredictability is “stochasticity,” or the random, hard-to-forecast variation in conditions that species must navigate.
The researchers found it has been rising steadily for four decades and, crucially, that it is not distributed evenly.
More unpredictability means fewer species
The study found a strong, negative relationship between environmental instability and species richness: regions where conditions fluctuate more unpredictably support a significantly lower diversity of plants and animals. The effect holds even after accounting for how productive an ecosystem is.
Environmental stochasticity across Canada has increased steadily since 1981.
The team found pronounced geographic patterns: some ecozones – including parts of the Pacific Maritime, Montane Cordillera (southern BC and southwestern Alberta, including the Okanagan) and Atlantic Maritime – experience consistently higher instability, while others remain comparatively stable.
Unstable environments also suffer more extreme temperature events. Areas with high unpredictability were also more likely to experience months with extreme temperatures relative to historical baselines, compounding the stress on wildlife.
Canada’s protected areas are misaligned with where they’re needed most.
The researchers found no meaningful relationship between environmental stability and whether a region is currently protected.
Many of Canada’s most stable, biologically productive landscapes remain outside the protected areas network.
“High environmental variability can increase extinction risk and make protected areas less effective at safeguarding biodiversity, and climate change is expected to increase that variability,” said Marcus, the lead researcher.
“By analyzing how environmental conditions vary across Canada, we identified a significant number of areas that should be priorities for biodiversity conservation.”
The team identified more than 2.7 million square kilometres of unprotected land that ranks in the most stable and productive 30 per cent of the country. These areas could help meaningfully strengthen the resilience of Canada’s conservation network.
Implications for Canada’s 30 by 30 commitment
Canada has committed to protecting 30 per cent of its land and ocean habitat by 2030. With only 13.8 per cent currently under formal protection, the country faces an urgent task of identifying more than 1.7 million additional square kilometres for designation in the next four years.
The UBC Okanagan team argues that conventional approaches to identifying protected areas, which typically focus on average environmental conditions, are not enough.
Ignoring how conditions vary around that average, they say, risks building a conservation network that looks good on paper but cannot buffer wildlife against the increasingly erratic climate Canadians are already experiencing.
The study also identified another gap: areas that experience the most extreme temperature events, primarily in Canada’s northern regions, are underrepresented.
“As climate change makes the world around us increasingly less predictable, our protected areas may not have the capacity to buffer against this,” Dr. Noonan says. “This research gives decision-makers a new set of tools to identify where protection will be the most effective. Not just for today, but for decades to come.”
Journal Reference:
Marcus, R., Mezzini, S., Desai, D. et al., ‘Environmental variability shapes biodiversity and protected area priorities in Canada’, Communications Earth & Environment 7, 146 (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-025-03166-4
Article Source:
Press Release/Material by David Bidwell | University of British Columbia, Okanagan (UBCO)
Featured image credit: Ben den Engelsen | Unsplash
