What to do in the face of multiple threats? Incorporating dependencies within a return on investment framework for conservation

Aim Our study aimed to determine priority areas for conservation investment with explicit consideration of the impacts of multiple threatening processes, and the dependencies that exist between actions required to abate these threats. Location Australia. Methods We analysed the return on investment for two different management actions aimed at reducing the impact of invasive species on the native fauna and flora of Australia. We focussed on the management of the European red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) at two spatial scales: across 72 biogeographic regions of Australia and within one high‐priority biogeographic region. We considered each action independently and also explicitly accounted for the option of an integrated fox and rabbit management action. We accounted for the spatial distributions of the threatened species within our analysis and determined how this refined spatial information influenced both the priority areas and the timing of this investment. Results Integrated fox and rabbit management was identified as a higher priority than singular threat abatement in most bioregions, whereas rabbit control alone was the most frequent priority if dependencies between actions were ignored. At the regional scale, funding was entirely directed to integrated action when seven or more species within the priority region were impacted by more than one threat. The total allocation of funding and timing of initial investment remained relatively insensitive to differences in the spatial overlap of species distributions. Main conclusions Our findings indicate that prioritizing conservation actions without explicit consideration of the impacts of multiple threats can reduce the cost‐effectiveness of investments. The benefits expected from investment in abating one threat alone may be overestimated where other processes continue to threaten species persistence. We conclude that future attention should be directed to refining our understanding of the cost‐efficiencies delivered through integrated actions and institutional mechanisms to achieve their delivery.     

Biodiversity scenarios neglect future land‐use changes

Efficient management of biodiversity requires a forward‐looking approach based on scenarios that explore biodiversity changes under future environmental conditions. A number of ecological models have been proposed over the last decades to develop these biodiversity scenarios. Novel modelling approaches with strong theoretical foundation now offer the possibility to integrate key ecological and evolutionary processes that shape species distribution and community structure. Although biodiversity is affected by multiple threats, most studies addressing the effects of future environmental changes on biodiversity focus on a single threat only. We examined the studies published during the last 25 years that developed scenarios to predict future biodiversity changes based on climate, land‐use and land‐cover change projections. We found that biodiversity scenarios mostly focus on the future impacts of climate change and largely neglect changes in land use and land cover. The emphasis on climate change impacts has increased over time and has now reached a maximum. Yet, the direct destruction and degradation of habitats through land‐use and land‐cover changes are among the most significant and immediate threats to biodiversity. We argue that the current state of integration between ecological and land system sciences is leading to biased estimation of actual risks and therefore constrains the implementation of forward‐looking policy responses to biodiversity decline. We suggest research directions at the crossroads between ecological and environmental sciences to face the challenge of developing interoperable and plausible projections of future environmental changes and to anticipate the full range of their potential impacts on biodiversity. An intergovernmental platform is needed to stimulate such collaborative research efforts and to emphasize the societal and political relevance of taking up this challenge.     

Susceptibility of European freshwater fish to climate change: Species profiling based on life‐history and environmental characteristics

Climate change is expected to strongly affect freshwater fish communities. Combined with other anthropogenic drivers, the impacts may alter species spatio‐temporal distributions and contribute to population declines and local extinctions. To provide timely management and conservation of fishes, it is relevant to identify species that will be most impacted by climate change and those that will be resilient. Species traits are considered a promising source of information on characteristics that influence resilience to various environmental conditions and impacts. To this end, we collated life‐history traits and climatic niches of 443 European freshwater fish species and compared those identified as susceptible to climate change to those that are considered to be resilient. Significant differences were observed between the two groups in their distribution, life history, and climatic niche, with climate‐change‐susceptible species being distributed within the Mediterranean region, and being characterized by greater threat levels, lesser commercial relevance, lower vulnerability to fishing, smaller body and range size, and warmer thermal envelopes. Based on our results, we establish a list of species of highest priority for further research and monitoring regarding climate‐change susceptibility within Europe. The presented approach represents a promising tool to efficiently assess large groups of species regarding their susceptibility to climate change and other threats, and to identify research and management priorities.     

Climate change and biological invasions: evidence,expectations, and response options

A changing climate may directly or indirectly influence biological invasions by altering the likelihood of introduction or establishment, as well as modifying the geographic range, environmental impacts, economic costs or management of alien species. A comprehensive assessment of empirical and theoretical evidence identified how each of these processes is likely to be shaped by climate change for alien plants, animals and pathogens in terrestrial, freshwater and marine environments of Great Britain. The strongest contemporary evidence for the potential role of climate change in the establishment of new alien species is for terrestrial arthropods, as a result of their ectothermic physiology, often high dispersal rate and their strong association with trade as well as commensal relationships with human environments. By contrast, there is little empirical support for higher temperatures increasing the rate of alien plant establishment due to the stronger effects of residence time and propagule pressure. The magnitude of any direct climate effect on the number of new alien species will be small relative to human‐assisted introductions driven by socioeconomic factors. Casual alien species (sleepers) whose population persistence is limited by climate are expected to exhibit greater rates of establishment under climate change assuming that propagule pressure remains at least at current levels. Surveillance and management targeting sleeper pests and diseases may be the most cost‐effective option to reduce future impacts under climate change. Most established alien species will increase their distribution range in Great Britain over the next century. However, such range increases are very likely be the result of natural expansion of populations that have yet to reach equilibrium with their environment, rather than a direct consequence of climate change. To assess the potential realised range of alien species will require a spatially explicit approach that not only integrates bioclimatic suitability and population‐level demographic rates but also simulation of landscape‐level processes (e.g. dispersal, land‐use change, host/habitat distribution, non‐climatic edaphic constraints). In terms of invasive alien species that have known economic or biodiversity impacts, the taxa that are likely to be the most responsive are plant pathogens and insect pests of agricultural crops. However, the extent to which climate adaptation strategies lead to new crops, altered rotations, and different farming practices (e.g. irrigation, fertilization) will all shape the potential agricultural impacts of alien species. The greatest uncertainty in the effects of climate change on biological invasions exists with identifying the future character of new species introductions and predicting ecosystem impacts. Two complementary strategies may work under these conditions of high uncertainty: (i) prioritise ecosystems in terms of their perceived vulnerability to climate change and prevent ingress or expansion of alien species therein that may exacerbate problems; (ii) target those ecosystem already threatened by alien species and implement management to prevent the situation deteriorating under climate change.     

Ecosystem‐based management of coral reefs under climate change

Coral reefs provide food and livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people as well as harbour some of the highest regions of biodiversity in the ocean. However, overexploitation, land‐use change and other local anthropogenic threats to coral reefs have left many degraded. Additionally, coral reefs are faced with the dual emerging threats of ocean warming and acidification due to rising CO₂ emissions, with dire predictions that they will not survive the century. This review evaluates the impacts of climate change on coral reef organisms, communities and ecosystems, focusing on the interactions between climate change factors and local anthropogenic stressors. It then explores the shortcomings of existing management and the move towards ecosystem‐based management and resilience thinking, before highlighting the need for climate change‐ready marine protected areas (MPAs), reduction in local anthropogenic stressors, novel approaches such as human‐assisted evolution and the importance of sustainable socialecological systems. It concludes that designation of climate change‐ready MPAs, integrated with other management strategies involving stakeholders and participation at multiple scales such as marine spatial planning, will be required to maximise coral reef resilience under climate change. However, efforts to reduce carbon emissions are critical if the long‐term efficacy of local management actions is to be maintained and coral reefs are to survive.     

Potential impacts of future land use and climate change on the Red List status of the Proteaceae in the Cape Floristic Region, South Africa

Using spatial predictions of future threats to biodiversity, we assessed for the first time the relative potential impacts of future land use and climate change on the threat status of plant species. We thus estimated how many taxa could be affected by future threats that are usually not included in current IUCN Red List assessments. Here, we computed the Red List status including future threats of 227 Proteaceae taxa endemic to the Cape Floristic Region, South Africa, and compared this with their Red List status excluding future threats. We developed eight different land use and climate change scenarios for the year 2020, providing a range of best‐ to worst‐case scenarios. Four scenarios include only the effects of future land use change, while the other four also include the impacts of projected anthropogenic climate change (HadCM2 IS92a GGa), using niche‐based models. Up to a third of the 227 Proteaceae taxa are uplisted (become more threatened) by up to three threat categories if future threats as predicted for 2020 are included, and the proportion of threatened Proteaceae taxa rises on average by 9% (range 2–16%), depending on the scenario. With increasing severity of the scenarios, the proportion of Critically Endangered taxa increases from about 1% to 7% and almost 2% of the 227 Proteaceae taxa become Extinct because of climate change. Overall, climate change has the most severe effects on the Proteaceae, but land use change also severely affects some taxa. Most of the threatened taxa occur in low‐lying coastal areas, but the proportion of threatened taxa changes considerably in inland mountain areas if future threats are included. Our approach gives important insights into how, where and when future threats could affect species persistence and can in a sense be seen as a test of the value of planned interventions for conservation.     

Effects of high latitude protected areas on bird communities under rapid climate change

Anthropogenic climate change is rapidly becoming one of the main threats to biodiversity, along with other threats triggered by human‐driven land‐use change. Species are already responding to climate change by shifting their distributions polewards. This shift may create a spatial mismatch between dynamic species distributions and static protected areas (PAs). As protected areas represent one of the main pillars for preserving biodiversity today and in the future, it is important to assess their contribution in sheltering the biodiversity communities, they were designated to protect. A recent development to investigate climate‐driven impacts on biological communities is represented by the community temperature index (CTI). CTI provides a measure of the relative temperature average of a community in a specific assemblage. CTI value will be higher for assemblages dominated by warm species compared with those dominated by cold‐dwelling species. We here model changes in the CTI of Finnish bird assemblages, as well as changes in species densities, within and outside of PAs during the past four decades in a large boreal landscape under rapid change. We show that CTI has markedly increased over time across Finland, with this change being similar within and outside PAs and five to seven times slower than the temperature increase. Moreover, CTI has been constantly lower within than outside of PAs, and PAs still support communities, which show colder thermal index than those outside of PAs in the 1970s and 1980s. This result can be explained by the higher relative density of northern species within PAs than outside. Overall, our results provide some, albeit inconclusive, evidence that PAs may play a role in supporting the community of northern species. Results also suggest that communities are, however, shifting rapidly, both inside and outside of PAs, highlighting the need for adjusting conservation measures before it is too late.     

Ecological forecasts to inform near‐term management of threats to biodiversity

Ecosystems are being altered by rapid and interacting changes in natural processes and anthropogenic threats to biodiversity. Uncertainty in historical, current and future effectiveness of actions hampers decisions about how to mitigate changes to prevent biodiversity loss and species extinctions. Research in resource management, agriculture and health indicates that forecasts predicting the effects of near‐term or seasonal environmental conditions on management greatly improve outcomes. Such forecasts help resolve uncertainties about when and how to operationalize management. We reviewed the scientific literature on environmental management to investigate whether near‐term forecasts are developed to inform biodiversity decisions in Australia, a nation with one of the highest recent extinction rates across the globe. We found that forecasts focused on economic objectives (e.g. fisheries management) predict on significantly shorter timelines and answer a broader range of management questions than forecasts focused on biodiversity conservation. We then evaluated scientific literature on the effectiveness of 484 actions to manage seven major terrestrial threats in Australia, to identify opportunities for near‐term forecasts to inform operational conservation decisions. Depending on the action, between 30% and 80% threat management operations experienced near‐term weather impacts on outcomes before, during or after management. Disease control, species translocation/reintroduction and habitat restoration actions were most frequently impacted, and negative impacts such as increased species mortality and reduced recruitment were more likely than positive impacts. Drought or dry conditions, and rainfall, were the most frequently reported weather impacts, indicating that near‐term forecasts predicting the effects of low or excessive rainfall on management outcomes are likely to have the greatest benefits. Across the world, many regions are, like Australia, becoming warmer and drier, or experiencing more extreme rainfall events. Informing conservation decisions with near‐term and seasonal ecological forecasting will be critical to harness uncertainties and lower the risk of threat management failure under global change.     

Multiple drivers of decline in the global status of freshwater crayfish (Decapoda: Astacidea)

Rates of biodiversity loss are higher in freshwater ecosystems than in most terrestrial or marine ecosystems, making freshwater conservation a priority. However, prioritization methods are impeded by insufficient knowledge on the distribution and conservation status of freshwater taxa, particularly invertebrates. We evaluated the extinction risk of the world''s 590 freshwater crayfish species using the IUCN Categories and Criteria and found 32% of all species are threatened with extinction. The level of extinction risk differed between families, with proportionally more threatened species in the Parastacidae and Astacidae than in the Cambaridae. Four described species were Extinct and 21% were assessed as Data Deficient. There was geographical variation in the dominant threats affecting the main centres of crayfish diversity. The majority of threatened US and Mexican species face threats associated with urban development, pollution, damming and water management. Conversely, the majority of Australian threatened species are affected by climate change, harvesting, agriculture and invasive species. Only a small proportion of crayfish are found within the boundaries of protected areas, suggesting that alternative means of long-term protection will be required. Our study highlights many of the significant challenges yet to come for freshwater biodiversity unless conservation planning shifts from a reactive to proactive approach.     

全球变化情景下的中国木本植物受威胁物种名录

生物多样性正面临快速丧失的风险, 气候和土地利用变化已成为生物多样性的主要威胁之一。受威胁物种名录是区域和全球生物多样性保护的重要基础数据, 也是保护区规划的基础。作为一个生物多样性大国, 中国已开展了高等植物受威胁状况的系统性评估, 建立了受威胁植物名录, 为植物多样性保护规划提供了支撑。但由于数据和方法限制, 现有受威胁植物名录制定时未定量考虑全球变化对植物分布的潜在影响, 因而可能低估物种的受威胁等级及未来生物多样性的丧失风险。本研究基于高精度的木本植物分布数据和物种分布模型, 评估了未来气候和土地利用变化对木本植物分布的潜在影响。基于每个物种适宜分布区大小的变化, 并依据IUCN红色名录评估指标A3c的阈值标准, 更新了木本植物的受威胁等级, 补充了未来中国潜在受威胁木本植物名录。结果显示: 综合不同的气候变化情景(RCP 2.6、RCP 6.0和RCP 8.5)和扩散情景(完全扩散、20 km/10年、不扩散), 约12.9%-40.5%的木本植物被评估为受威胁物种。该名录将为制定木本植物保护优先级、开展保护区规划、提升全球变化情景下的生物多样性保护成效提供基础数据, 也为其他类群制定全面的受威胁物种名录提供参考。     

An invasive plant and climate change threat index for weed risk management: Integrating habitat distribution pattern and dispersal process

Invasive plants pose a significant threat to the integrity and biodiversity of native systems. Weed risk assessment and management provides a framework for assessing this threat. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the threat posed to biodiversity by invasive plants in a rapidly changing climate. This paper aims to estimate the impacts of climate change on exotic plant habitats, and incorporates elements of dispersal to develop a management index for identifying invasive plant threat under climate change. The spatial distribution of habitat suitability is modelled at the landscape scale for multiple exotic plant species under current climate and a climate change scenario for the year 2030. Expert opinion of the dominant dispersal mechanisms and weed status is used to model relative dispersal threat of each exotic plant species. These pattern and process outputs are integrated to create a multi-species management priority layer in an effort to synthesise the inherently complex outputs from multiple models of multiple species. The overall multi-species management index thus combines pattern and process to identify geographic locations at greatest threat from invasion under climate change.     

Biodiversity as a solution to mitigate climate change impacts on the functioning of forest ecosystems

Forest ecosystems are critical to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions through carbon sequestration. However, climate change has affected forest ecosystem functioning in both negative and positive ways, and has led to shifts in species/functional diversity and losses in plant species diversity which may impair the positive effects of diversity on ecosystem functioning. Biodiversity may mitigate climate change impacts on (I) biodiversity itself, as more‐diverse systems could be more resilient to climate change impacts, and (II) ecosystem functioning through the positive relationship between diversity and ecosystem functioning. By surveying the literature, we examined how climate change has affected forest ecosystem functioning and plant diversity. Based on the biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning (B→EF), we specifically address the potential for biodiversity to mitigate climate change impacts on forest ecosystem functioning. For this purpose, we formulate a concept whereby biodiversity may reduce the negative impacts or enhance the positive impacts of climate change on ecosystem functioning. Further B→EF studies on climate change in natural forests are encouraged to elucidate how biodiversity might influence ecosystem functioning. This may be achieved through the detailed scrutiny of large spatial/long temporal scale data sets, such as long‐term forest inventories. Forest management strategies based on B→EF have strong potential for augmenting the effectiveness of the roles of forests in the mitigation of climate change impacts on ecosystem functioning.     

Synthesizing the role of epigenetics in the response and adaptation of species to climate change in freshwater ecosystems

Freshwater ecosystems are amongst the most threatened ecosystems on Earth. Currently, climate change is one of the most important drivers of freshwater transformation and its effects include changes in the composition, biodiversity and functioning of freshwater ecosystems. Understanding the capacity of freshwater species to tolerate the environmental fluctuations induced by climate change is critical to the development of effective conservation strategies. In the last few years, epigenetic mechanisms were increasingly put forward in this context because of their pivotal role in gene–environment interactions. In addition, the evolutionary role of epigenetically inherited phenotypes is a relatively recent but promising field. Here, we examine and synthesize the impacts of climate change on freshwater ecosystems, exploring the potential role of epigenetic mechanisms in both short‐ and long‐term adaptation of species. Following this wrapping‐up of current evidence, we particularly focused on bringing together the most promising future research avenues towards a better understanding of the effects of climate change on freshwater biodiversity, specifically highlighting potential molecular targets and the most suitable freshwater species for future epigenetic studies in this context.     

Conservation of Chinese Theaceae species under future climate and land use changes

Aim

Climate and land use changes are two major pervasive and growing global causes of rapid changes in the distribution patterns of biodiversity, challenging the future effectiveness of protected areas (PAs), which were mainly designed based on a static view of biodiversity. Therefore, evaluating the effectiveness of protected areas for protecting the species threatened by climate and land use change is critical for future biodiversity conservation.

Location

China.

Methods

Here, using distributions of 200 Chinese Theaceae species and ensemble species distribution models, we identified species threatened by future climate and land use change (i.e. species with predicted loss of suitable habitat ≥30%) under scenarios incorporating climate change, land use change and dispersal. We then estimate the richness distribution patterns of threatened species and identify priority conservation areas and conservation gaps of the current PA network.

Results

Our results suggest that 36.30%–51.85% of Theaceae species will be threatened by future climate and land use conditions and that although the threatened species are mainly distributed at low latitudes in China under both current and future periods, the mean richness of the threatened species per grid cell will decline by 0.826–3.188 species by the 2070s. Moreover, we found that these priority conservation areas are highly fragmented and that the current PA network only covers 14.21%–20.87% of the ‘areas worth exploring’ and 6.91%–7.91% of the ‘areas worth attention’.

Main Conclusions

Our findings highlight the necessity of establishing new protected areas and ecological corridors in priority conservation areas to protect the threatened species. Moreover, our findings also highlight the importance of taking into consideration the potential threatened species under future climate and land use conditions when designating priority areas for biodiversity conservation.     

BIODIVERSITY RESEARCH: Geographical linkages between threats and imperilment in freshwater fish in the Mediterranean Basin

Aim The level of imperilment of mediterranean freshwater fish is among the highest recorded for any group of organisms evaluated to date. Here, we describe the geographical patterns in the incidence of threats affecting mediterranean freshwater fish and test whether the effects of specific threats are spatially related to the degree of imperilment of fish faunas. Location The Mediterranean Basin Biome. Methods From the IUCN Red List, we recorded the six main threats to 232 endemic freshwater fish species. We used data on fish distributions from IUCN to characterize the spatial patterns in the incidence of threats (as percentage of species affected) through multivariate statistics. We studied the relationships between threat incidence and two estimators of imperilment (proportion of species threatened and an index of extinction risk) at two spatial scales (10 × 10 km and basins) using partial least squares regressions (PLSR) that incorporated the effects of species richness and mean range size. Results The main axis of variation in the incidence of threats to freshwater fish split areas mainly affected by invasive species from those areas where species are threatened by pollution and agriculture. Wherever invasive species and water extraction were predominant threats, fish assemblages consistently tended to be more imperilled. Main conclusions As far as we know, this is the first large‐scale analysis on the spatial relationships between the incidence of threats and level of imperilment of any taxonomic group. Our results highlight the primary role of invasive species and water extraction as drivers of native fish declines in the Mediterranean Basin. Large‐scale patterns described here should be generated by local‐scale impacts of both threats on fish biodiversity, widely reported in Mediterranean areas. Because all the species under concern are endemic, control of invasive species and reducing overexploitation of freshwater resources should be conservation priorities for mediterranean freshwater systems.     

The impact of global climate change on tropical forest biodiversity in Amazonia

Aim To model long‐term trends in plant species distributions in response to predicted changes in global climate. Location Amazonia. Methods The impacts of expected global climate change on the potential and realized distributions of a representative sample of 69 individual Angiosperm species in Amazonia were simulated from 1990 to 2095. The climate trend followed the HADCM2GSa1 scenario, which assumes an annual 1% increase of atmospheric CO₂ content with effects mitigated by sulphate forcing. Potential distributions of species in one‐degree grid cells were modelled using a suitability index and rectilinear envelope based on bioclimate variables. Realized distributions were additionally limited by spatial contiguity with, and proximity to, known record sites. A size‐structured population model was simulated for each cell in the realized distributions to allow for lags in response to climate change, but dispersal was not included. Results In the resulting simulations, 43% of all species became non‐viable by 2095 because their potential distributions had changed drastically, but there was little change in the realized distributions of most species, owing to delays in population responses. Widely distributed species with high tolerance to environmental variation exhibited the least response to climate change, and species with narrow ranges and short generation times the greatest. Climate changed most in north‐east Amazonia while the best remaining conditions for lowland moist forest species were in western Amazonia. Main conclusions To maintain the greatest resilience of Amazonian biodiversity to climate change as modelled by HADCM2GSa1, highest priority should be given to strengthening and extending protected areas in western Amazonia that encompass lowland and montane forests.     

Shifting ranges and conservation challenges for lemurs in the face of climate change

Geospatial modeling is one of the most powerful tools available to conservation biologists for estimating current species ranges of Earth's biodiversity. Now, with the advantage of predictive climate models, these methods can be deployed for understanding future impacts on threatened biota. Here, we employ predictive modeling under a conservative estimate of future climate change to examine impacts on the future abundance and geographic distributions of Malagasy lemurs. Using distribution data from the primary literature, we employed ensemble species distribution models and geospatial analyses to predict future changes in species distributions. Current species distribution models (SDMs) were created within the BIOMOD2 framework that capitalizes on ten widely used modeling techniques. Future and current SDMs were then subtracted from each other, and areas of contraction, expansion, and stability were calculated. Model overprediction is a common issue associated Malagasy taxa. Accordingly, we introduce novel methods for incorporating biological data on dispersal potential to better inform the selection of pseudo‐absence points. This study predicts that 60% of the 57 species examined will experience a considerable range of reductions in the next seventy years entirely due to future climate change. Of these species, range sizes are predicted to decrease by an average of 59.6%. Nine lemur species (16%) are predicted to expand their ranges, and 13 species (22.8%) distribution sizes were predicted to be stable through time. Species ranges will experience severe shifts, typically contractions, and for the majority of lemur species, geographic distributions will be considerably altered. We identify three areas in dire need of protection, concluding that strategically managed forest corridors must be a key component of lemur and other biodiversity conservation strategies. This recommendation is all the more urgent given that the results presented here do not take into account patterns of ongoing habitat destruction relating to human activities.     

A framework for the identification of hotspots of climate change risk for mammals

As rates of global warming increase rapidly, identifying species at risk of decline due to climate impacts and the factors affecting this risk have become key challenges in ecology and conservation biology. Here, we present a framework for assessing three components of climate‐related risk for species: vulnerability, exposure and hazard. We used the relationship between the observed response of species to climate change and a set of intrinsic traits (e.g. weaning age) and extrinsic factors (e.g. precipitation seasonality within a species geographic range) to predict, respectively, the vulnerability and exposure of all data‐sufficient terrestrial non‐volant mammals (3,953 species). Combining this information with hazard (the magnitude of projected climate change within a species geographic range), we identified global hotspots of species at risk from climate change that includes the western Amazon basin, south‐western Kenya, north‐eastern Tanzania, north‐eastern South Africa, Yunnan province in China, and mountain chains in Papua‐New Guinea. Our framework identifies priority areas for monitoring climate change effects on species and directing climate mitigation actions for biodiversity.     

Projected impacts of climate change on a continent-wide protected area network

Despite widespread concern, the continuing effectiveness of networks of protected areas under projected 21st century climate change is uncertain. Shifts in species' distributions could mean these resources will cease to afford protection to those species for which they were originally established. Using modelled projected shifts in the distributions of sub-Saharan Africa's entire breeding avifauna, we show that species turnover across the continent's Important Bird Area (IBA) network is likely to vary regionally and will be substantial at many sites (> 50% at 42% of IBAs by 2085 for priority species). Persistence of suitable climate space across the network as a whole, however, is notably high, with 88–92% of priority species retaining suitable climate space in ≥ 1 IBA(s) in which they are currently found. Only 7–8 priority species lose climatic representation from the network. Hence, despite the likelihood of significant community disruption, we demonstrate that rigorously defined networks of protected areas can play a key role in mitigating the worst impacts of climate change on biodiversity.