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Assessing species' vulnerability to climate change is a prerequisite for developing effective strategies to conserve them. The last three decades have seen exponential growth in the number of studies evaluating how, how much, why, when, and where species will be impacted by climate change. We provide an overview of the rapidly developing field of climate change vulnerability assessment (CCVA) and describe key concepts, terms, steps and considerations. We stress the importance of identifying the full range of pressures, impacts and their associated mechanisms that species face and using this as a basis for selecting the appropriate assessment approaches for quantifying vulnerability. We outline four CCVA assessment approaches, namely trait?based, correlative, mechanistic and combined approaches and discuss their use. Since any assessment can deliver unreliable or even misleading results when incorrect data and parameters are applied, we discuss finding, selecting, and applying input data and provide examples of open?access resources. Because rare, small?range, and declining?range species are often of particular conservation concern while also posing significant challenges for CCVA, we describe alternative ways to assess them. We also describe how CCVAs can be used to inform IUCN Red List assessments of extinction risk. Finally, we suggest future directions in this field and propose areas where research efforts may be particularly valuable.

Breeding success of 5 Cory’s shearwater Calonectris diomedea sub-colonies of Lavezzu Island (Lavezzi Archipelago, Corsica) was checked annually for 25 consecutive years from 1979 to 2004. Between 1989 and 1994, 4 ship rat Rattus rattus controls were performed in several subcolonies. In November 2000, rats were eradicated from Lavezzu Island and its 16 peripheral islets (85 ha) using traps then toxic baits. We compare cost (number of person-hours required in the field) and benefit (Cory’s shearwater breeding success) of control and eradication. The average breeding success doubled when rats were controlled or eradicated (0.82) compared to the situation without rat management (0.45). Moreover, the average breeding success after eradication (0.86) was significantly (11%) higher than after rat controls (0.75). Furthermore, the great variation in breeding success recorded among sub-colonies both with and without rat control declined dramatically after eradication, suggesting that rats had a major impact on breeding success. The estimated effort needed to perform eradication and checking of the permanent bait-station system during the year following eradication was 1360 person-hours. In contrast, rat control was estimated to require 240 or 1440 person-hours per year when implemented by trained and untrained staff, respectively. Within 6 yr, eradication cost is lower than control cost performed by untrained staff and confers several ecological advantages on more ecosystem components than Cory’s shearwater alone. Improved eradication tools such as hand or aerial broadcasting of toxic baits instead of the fairly labour-intensive eradication strategy we used would dramatically increase the economic advantage of eradication vs. control. Therefore, when feasible, we recommend eradication rather than control of non-native rat populations. Nevertheless, control remains a useful management tool when eradication is not practicable.