The current challenge in a context of major environmental changes is to anticipate the
responses of species to future landscape and climate scenarios. In the Mediterranean
basin, climate change is one the most powerful driving forces of fire dynamics, with fire
frequency and impact having markedly increased in recent years. Species distribution
modelling plays a fundamental role in this challenge, but better integration of available
ecological knowledge is needed to adequately guide conservation efforts. Here, we
quantified changes in habitat suitability of an early-succession bird in Catalonia, the
Dartford Warbler (Sylvia undata) ― globally evaluated as Near Threatened in the IUCN
Red List. We assessed potential changes in species distributions between 2000 and
2050 under different fire management and climate change scenarios and described
landscape dynamics using a spatially-explicit fire-succession model that simulates fire
impacts in the landscape and post-fire regeneration (MEDFIRE model). Dartford
Warbler occurrence data were acquired at two different spatial scales from: 1) the Atlas
of European Breeding Birds (EBCC) and 2) Catalan Breeding Bird Atlas (CBBA).
Habitat suitability was modelled using five widely-used modelling techniques in an
ensemble forecasting framework. Our results indicated considerable habitat suitability
losses (ranging between 47% and 57% in baseline scenarios), which were modulated
to a large extent by fire regime changes derived from fire management policies and
climate changes. Such result highlighted the need for taking the spatial interaction
between climate changes, fire-mediated landscape dynamics and fire management
policies into account for coherently anticipating habitat suitability changes of early
succession bird species. We conclude that fire management programs need to be
integrated into conservation plans to effectively preserve sparsely forested and early
succession habitats and their associated species in the face of global environmental
change.