Our biodiversity projections were developed using a form of community-level modelling that considers the implications of climate change on all species simultaneously within a single integrated process. This complements individual species models that have been more commonly used in natural resource management planning. This Guide is intended as a reference to explain the interpretation and use of the new types of measures introduced. It is designed to accompany the datasets and maps that, along with the Guide, collectively constitute the AdaptNRM Module.

Section 2 of this Guide introduces the concept of ecological similarity and explains the key principles of the community-level modelling approach and how it applies to climate change. Sections 3 to 6 cover four topics, which present different measures of ecological change, in order of increasing complexity:

• Section 3 describes the potential degree of ecological change at any location as a simple measure of the potential for future persistence of biodiversity.
• Section 4 outlines two concepts related to the potential for extreme ecological outcomes – where present-day environments may disappear from the continent in the future and where novel environments may arise.
• Section 5 introduces the concept of effective area of ecological environments, for measuring change in the capacity of future landscapes to support their original biodiversity, including interactions with past land clearing patterns.
• Section 6 presents an integrated view (composite ecological change) of three of the measures explored in previous sections, to identify different types of change and show where they coincide.