Climate change is predicted to have a marked impact on biodiversity, and changes in the distributions of numerous species have already been correlated with ongoing climate change. Climatic oscillations, however, were also the rule during the Pleistocene, and a look to the past may therefore shed light on the impact of future climate change on biodiversity. In my PhD, I relate past climatic changes and their impact on the distributions of African birds and mammals to potential impacts of future climate change: I revisit the role of refugia as areas where species survived adverse climatic conditions during the Last Glacial Maximum, explore surrogates for the dispersal ability of African starlings and critically assess the tools I use and the assumptions behind them.