Interacting effects of climate change, landscape conversion, and harvest on lynx at the range margin

This influential modeling study examined Canada lynx and American marten at the southern edge of their range in the northern Appalachians, asking how climate warming, forest conversion, and trapping pressure jointly shape population viability. By integrating spatially explicit population models with future climate and land-use scenarios, the authors showed that climate change interacts with habitat loss and harvest to push range-margin populations toward decline, and that the combined effect exceeds any single stressor. The work is widely cited for demonstrating why climate-adaptation planning for boreal carnivores must address multiple interacting threats simultaneously, and for highlighting the special fragility of trailing-edge populations where habitat is already marginal.