# Topics and Trends in Most Cited Species Distribution and Climate Change Papers, Class of 2026

*Canonical URL: https://pri.pepkio.com/top-papers/species-distribution-and-climate-change/2026*

## What topics and trends defined most-cited Species Distribution and Climate Change research in the Class of 2026?

Species distribution and climate change research shifts from basic accuracy metrics toward actionable conservation prioritization and ensemble modeling. Bioclimatic variables, biodiversity monitoring, and vascular plants dominate high-impact literature. Projections incorporating ecosystem functioning, habitat fragmentation, and local adaptation surge dramatically, while traditional metrics like AUC performance and thermal tolerance limits recede among top-cited publications.

## At a glance

| Fact | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Field | Species Distribution and Climate Change |
| Cohort label | Class of 2026 (2024 publications) |
| Papers analyzed | 9,030 |
| Papers ranked | 20 |
| Top topics in ranked papers | Conservation prioritization, Bioclimatic variables, Ensemble modeling, Biodiversity monitoring, Vascular plants |
| Publication window | Jan 1, 2024 – Dec 31, 2024 |
| Eligibility | Research articles; reviews excluded |
| Citation window | 18 months post-publication |
| 18m citation range | 40–139 |
| Data source | OpenAlex · Retrieved Jul 2026 |
| License | CC BY 4.0 |

## Rankings

| Rank | Title | Authors | Corresponding authors | Affiliation | Journal | 18m citations | DOI |
| ---: | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---: | --- |
| 1 | Climate change extinctions | Mark C Urban | Mark C. Urban | University of Connecticut, United States | Science | 139 | 10.1126/science.adp4461 |
| 2 | Mechanisms, detection and impacts of species redistributions under climate change | Jake Lawlor, Lise Comte, Gaël Grenouillet, Jonathan Lenoir, J. Alex Baecher, Rathnayaka Mudiyanselage Wajra Jeewantha Bandara, Romain Bertrand, I‐Ching Chen, Sarah E. Diamond, Lesley T. Lancaster, Nikki A. Moore, Jérôme Murienne, Brunno F. Oliveira, GT Pecl, Malin L. Pinsky, Jonathan Rolland, Madeleine A. Rubenstein, Brett R. Scheffers, Laura M. Thompson, Brit van Amerom, Fabricio Villalobos, Sarah R. Weiskopf, Jennifer M. Sunday | Jake Lawlor | McGill University, Canada | Nature Reviews Earth & Environment | 109 | 10.1038/s43017-024-00527-z |
| 3 | Biodiversity impacts of the 2019–2020 Australian megafires | Don A Driscoll, Kristina J Macdonald, Rebecca K Gibson, Tim S Doherty, Dale G Nimmo, Rachael H Nolan, Euan G Ritchie, Grant J Williamson, Geoffrey W Heard, Elizabeth M Tasker, Rohan Bilney, Nick Porch, Rachael A Collett, Ross A Crates, Alison C Hewitt, Elise Pendall, Matthias M Boer, Jody Gates, Rebecca L Boulton, Christopher M Mclean, Heidi Groffen, Alex C Maisey, Chad T Beranek, Shelby A Ryan, Alex Callen, Andrew J Hamer, Andrew Stauber, Garry J Daly, John Gould, Kaya L Klop-Toker, Michael J Mahony, Oliver W Kelly, Samantha L Wallace, Sarah E Stock, Christopher J Weston, Liubov Volkova, Dennis Black, Heloise Gibb, Joshua J Grubb, Melodie A McGeoch, Nick P Murphy, Joshua S Lee, Chris R Dickman, Victor J Neldner, Michael R Ngugi, Vivianna Miritis, Frank Köhler, Marc Perri, Andrew J Denham, Berin D E Mackenzie, Chris A M Reid, Julia T Rayment, Alfonsina Arriaga-Jiménez, Michael W Hewins, Andrew Hicks, Brett A Melbourne, Kendi F Davies, Matthew E Bitters, Grant D Linley, Aaron C Greenville, Jonathan K Webb, Bridget Roberts, Mike Letnic, Owen F Price, Zac C Walker, Brad R Murray, Elise M Verhoeven, Alexandria M Thomsen, David Keith, Jedda S Lemmon, Mark K J Ooi, Vanessa L Allen, Orsi T Decker, Peter T Green, Adnan Moussalli, Junn K Foon, David B Bryant, Ken L Walker, Matthew J Bruce, George Madani, Jeremy L Tscharke, Benjamin Wagner, Craig R Nitschke, Carl R Gosper, Colin J Yates, Rebecca Dillon, Sarah Barrett, Emma E Spencer, Glenda M Wardle, Thomas M Newsome, Stephanie A Pulsford, Anu Singh, Adam Roff, Karen J Marsh, Kye Mcdonald, Lachlan G Howell, Murraya R Lane, Romane H Cristescu, Ryan R Witt, Emma J Cook, Felicity Grant, Bradley S Law, Julian Seddon, Karleah K Berris, Ryan M Shofner, Mike Barth, Torran Welz, Alison Foster, David Hancock, Matthew Beitzel, Laura X L Tan, Nathan A Waddell, Pamela M Fallow, Laura Schweickle, Tom D Le Breton, Craig Dunne, Mikayla Green, Amy-Marie Gilpin, James M Cook, Sally A Power, Katja Hogendoorn, Renee Brawata, Chris J Jolly, Mark Tozer, Noushka Reiter, Ryan D Phillips | Don A. Driscoll | Deakin University, Australia | Nature | 90 | 10.1038/s41586-024-08174-6 |
| 4 | Shifts in native tree species distributions in Europe under climate change | Marcin K Dyderski, Sonia Paź-Dyderska, Andrzej M Jagodziński, Radosław Puchałka | Marcin K. Dyderski | Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland | Journal of Environmental Management | 75 | 10.1016/j.jenvman.2024.123504 |
| 5 | Assisted tree migration can preserve the European forest carbon sink under climate change | Debojyoti Chakraborty, Albert Ciceu, Dalibor Ballian, Marta Benito Garzón, Andreas Bolte, Gregor Božič, Rafael Buchacher, Jaroslav Čepl, Eva Cremer, Alexis Ducousso, Julian Gaviria, Jan‐Peter George, André Hardtke, Mladen Ivanković, Marcin Klisz, J. Kowalczyk, Antoine Kremer, Milan Lstibůrek, Roman Longauer, Georgeta Mihai, László Nagy, Krasimira Petkova, E. Popov, Randolf Schirmer, Tore Skrøppa, Thomas Mørtvedt Solvin, Arne Steffenrem, Jan Stejskal, Srđan Stojnić, Katharina Volmer, Silvio Schueler | Silvio Schueler | Austrian Research Centre for Forests (BFW), Austria | Nature Climate Change | 62 | 10.1038/s41558-024-02080-5 |
| 6 | Extinction risk predictions for the world's flowering plants to support their conservation | Steven P Bachman, Matilda J M Brown, Tarciso C C Leão, Eimear Nic Lughadha, Barnaby E Walker | Steven P. Bachman | Royal Botanic Gardens, United Kingdom | New Phytologist | 61 | 10.1111/nph.19592 |
| 7 | Accounting for albedo change to identify climate-positive tree cover restoration | Natalia Hasler, Christopher A Williams, Vanessa Carrasco Denney, Peter W Ellis, Surendra Shrestha, Drew E Terasaki Hart, Nicholas H Wolff, Samantha Yeo, Thomas W Crowther, Leland K Werden, Susan C Cook-Patton | C. A. Williams, Susan C. Cook‐Patton | Clark University, United States | Nature Communications | 59 | 10.1038/s41467-024-46577-1 |
| 8 | Revealing uncertainty in the status of biodiversity change | T F Johnson, A P Beckerman, D Z Childs, T J Webb, K L Evans, C A Griffiths, P Capdevila, C F Clements, M Besson, R D Gregory, G H Thomas, E Delmas, R P Freckleton | Thomas F. Johnson | University of Sheffield, United Kingdom | Nature | 53 | 10.1038/s41586-024-07236-z |
| 9 | Global expansion of human-wildlife overlap in the 21st century | Deqiang Ma, Briana Abrahms, Jacob Allgeier, Tim Newbold, Brian C Weeks, Neil H Carter | Deqiang Ma, Briana Abrahms, Jacob E. Allgeier, Brian C. Weeks, Neil Carter | University of Michigan, United States | Science Advances | 51 | 10.1126/sciadv.adp7706 |
| 10 | Managing climate-change refugia to prevent extinctions | Gunnar Keppel, Diana Stralberg, Toni Lyn Morelli, Zoltán Bátori | Gunnar Keppel | University of South Australia, Australia | Trends in Ecology & Evolution | 50 | 10.1016/j.tree.2024.05.002 |
| 11 | Rapid shifts in grassland communities driven by climate change | Kai Zhu, Yiluan Song, Josephine C Lesage, Justin C Luong, James W Bartolome, Nona R Chiariello, Joan Dudney, Christopher B Field, Lauren M Hallett, Michele Hammond, Susan P Harrison, Grey F Hayes, Richard J Hobbs, Karen D Holl, Peter Hopkinson, Loralee Larios, Michael E Loik, Laura R Prugh | Kai Zhu | University of Michigan, United States | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 49 | 10.1038/s41559-024-02552-z |
| 12 | Climate velocities and species tracking in global mountain regions | Wei-Ping Chan, Jonathan Lenoir, Guan-Shuo Mai, Hung-Chi Kuo, I-Ching Chen, Sheng-Feng Shen | I‐Ching Chen, Sheng‐Feng Shen | Academia Sinica, Taiwan | Nature | 48 | 10.1038/s41586-024-07264-9 |
| 13 | Predicting the potential habitat suitability of Saussurea species in China under future climate scenarios using the optimized Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) model | Rongfang Zhao, Shijin Wang, Shengyun Chen | Shijin Wang | University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China | Journal of Cleaner Production | 48 | 10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.143552 |
| 14 | More than 17,000 tree species are at risk from rapid global change | Coline C F Boonman, Josep M Serra-Diaz, Selwyn Hoeks, Wen-Yong Guo, Brian J Enquist, Brian Maitner, Yadvinder Malhi, Cory Merow, Robert Buitenwerf, Jens-Christian Svenning | Coline C. F. Boonman | Aarhus University, Denmark | Nature Communications | 46 | 10.1038/s41467-023-44321-9 |
| 15 | Anthropogenic climate and land-use change drive short- and long-term biodiversity shifts across taxa | Teresa Montràs-Janer, Andrew J Suggitt, Richard Fox, Mari Jönsson, Blaise Martay, David B Roy, Kevin J Walker, Alistair G Auffret | Alistair G. Auffret | Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 45 | 10.1038/s41559-024-02326-7 |
| 16 | Interactions between climate change and urbanization will shape the future of biodiversity | Mark C. Urban, Marina Alberti, Luc De Meester, Yuyu Zhou, Brian C. Verrelli, Marta Szulkin, Chloé Schmidt, Amy M. Savage, Patrick Roberts, L. Ruth Rivkin, Eric P. Palkovacs, Jason Munshi‐South, Anna N. Malesis, Nyeema C. Harris, Kiyoko M. Gotanda, Colin J. Garroway, Sarah E. Diamond, Simone Des Roches, Anne Charmantier, Kristien I. Brans | Mark C. Urban | University of Connecticut, United States | Nature Climate Change | 44 | 10.1038/s41558-024-01996-2 |
| 17 | Global patterns of plant functional traits and their relationships to climate | Jiaze Li, Iain Colin Prentice | Jiaze Li | Imperial College London, United Kingdom | Communications Biology | 44 | 10.1038/s42003-024-06777-3 |
| 18 | Treating gaps and biases in biodiversity data as a missing data problem | Diana E Bowler, Robin J Boyd, Corey T Callaghan, Robert A Robinson, Nick J B Isaac, Michael J O Pocock | Diana E. Bowler | UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, United Kingdom | Biological reviews/Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society | 43 | 10.1111/brv.13127 |
| 19 | Unexpected westward range shifts in European forest plants link to nitrogen deposition | Pieter Sanczuk, Kris Verheyen, Jonathan Lenoir, Florian Zellweger, Jonas J Lembrechts, Francisco Rodríguez-Sánchez, Lander Baeten, Markus Bernhardt-Römermann, Karen De Pauw, Pieter Vangansbeke, Michael P Perring, Imre Berki, Anne D Bjorkman, Jörg Brunet, Markéta Chudomelová, Emiel De Lombaerde, Guillaume Decocq, Thomas Dirnböck, Tomasz Durak, Caroline Greiser, Radim Hédl, Thilo Heinken, Ute Jandt, Bogdan Jaroszewicz, Martin Kopecký, Dries Landuyt, Martin Macek, František Máliš, Tobias Naaf, Thomas A Nagel, Petr Petřík, Kamila Reczyńska, Wolfgang Schmidt, Tibor Standovár, Ingmar R Staude, Krzysztof Świerkosz, Balázs Teleki, Thomas Vanneste, Ondrej Vild, Donald Waller, Pieter De Frenne | Pieter Sanczuk | Ghent University, Belgium | Science | 41 | 10.1126/science.ado0878 |
| 20 | 65% cover is the sustainable vegetation threshold on the Loess Plateau | Yi-Ping Chen, Kai-Bo Wang, Bo-Jie Fu, Yan-Fen Wang, Han-Wen Tian, Yi Wang, Yi Zhang | Yiping Chen | Chinese Academy of Sciences, China | Environmental Science and Ecotechnology | 40 | 10.1016/j.ese.2024.100442 |

## Topic trends

### What Topics Define the Class of 2026?

The informative word cloud across top-cited Species Distribution and Climate Change research highlights an analytical transition toward actionable biodiversity protection, refined predictive modeling, and mechanistic ecological assessments. Conservation prioritization leads the 2024 cohort at a normalized frequency of 0.10 (5 mentions), underscoring how high-impact spatial modeling increasingly connects species distribution projections directly to spatial planning and reserve design. A prominent cluster of methodological and ecological drivers follows at a normalized frequency of 0.08 (4 mentions each), including bioclimatic variables, ensemble modeling, biodiversity monitoring, and targeted plant taxa such as vascular plants. High-impact literature frequently employs multi-algorithm ensemble techniques alongside high-resolution climate covariates to track biome-level vulnerability. Furthermore, a diverse array of ecosystem-level processes surfaces at a normalized frequency of 0.06 (3 mentions each), spanning ecosystem functioning, vegetation phenology, ecosystem services, habitat fragmentation, local adaptation, species interactions, and forest restoration. After filtering out broad generic descriptors, these patterns reflect a mature research domain that integrates climate niche modeling with empirical ecological dynamics, habitat connectivity, and proactive conservation management.

*Leading research themes*

### How Did Topics Shift from the Class of 2025 to the Class of 2026?

Comparing normalized concept frequencies between the Class of 2025 (2023 publications) and Class of 2026 (2024 publications) reveals a pronounced operational shift from basic model validation and physiological threshold testing toward integrated conservation application and ecosystem complexity. Conservation prioritization experienced the largest gain (+0.08 normalized frequency, expanding from 0.02 to 0.10), while ensemble modeling (+0.08) and vascular plants (+0.08) surged from zero baseline presence in top-cited 2023 literature. Biodiversity monitoring (+0.06), ecosystem functioning (+0.06), forest restoration (+0.06), habitat fragmentation (+0.06), and species interactions (+0.06) also demonstrated multi-fold increases, highlighting heightened focus on multi-trophic interactions and restoration ecology. Conversely, traditional model assessment metrics and isolated physiological measures declined: AUC fell from 0.08 to 0.04 (-0.04), and Thermal tolerance dropped from 0.08 to 0.04 (-0.04). Land use change (-0.02) and Data bias (-0.02) also receded relative to direct conservation frameworks. Together, these topic dynamics demonstrate that leading species distribution research is moving beyond single-species physiological limits and raw accuracy metrics toward ensemble spatial forecasting, ecosystem functioning, and actionable habitat restoration.

*How topics shifted year over year*

## Cite this ranking

```
Pepkio Research Index (PRI). Topics and Trends in Most Cited Species Distribution and Climate Change Papers, Class of 2026. https://pri.pepkio.com/top-papers/species-distribution-and-climate-change/2026. Accessed 2026-07-21.

Zheng Su, Tinsley Li, Thematic Shifts in Early-High-Impact Cancer Genomics and Diagnostics Research: A Bibliometric and Semantic Analysis. bioRxiv 2026.07.04.736459; doi: https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.07.04.736459
```