Current and future effectiveness of protected areas for the conservation of endemic owls from the Atlantic Forest

Protected areas are essential conservation tools for mitigating the rapid decline of biodiversity. However, climate change represents one of the main challenges to their long-term effectiveness, as it induces rapid changes in the geographical distribution of many species. We used ecological niche modelling to predict the impacts of climate change on the distribution of five endemic owls in the Atlantic Forest and evaluated the effectiveness of the protected areas network for their conservation. The results indicate that the protected areas network is currently effective in terms of representativeness for most species; however, there will be a decline for all species in the coming decades because of climate change. We found that the ecoregions in the northern part of the Atlantic Forest will experience a higher loss of species, whereas those ecoregions in the southern part will be important stable climatic refuges in the future. Therefore, we emphasize the need to complement the network of protected areas to increase their representativeness in the distribution of species that will be affected by climate change, reducing species loss and increasing connectivity between suitable areas. We hope the results presented herein will serve as a basis for decision-makers to re-evaluate and improve current conservation policies and decisions in order to address the challenges posed by climate change and secure the survival of these species.     

Climate change threatens European conservation areas

Europe has the world's most extensive network of conservation areas. Conservation areas are selected without taking into account the effects of climate change. How effectively would such areas conserve biodiversity under climate change? We assess the effectiveness of protected areas and the Natura 2000 network in conserving a large proportion of European plant and terrestrial vertebrate species under climate change. We found that by 2080, 58?±?2.6% of the species would lose suitable climate in protected areas, whereas losses affected 63?±?2.1% of the species of European concern occurring in Natura 2000 areas. Protected areas are expected to retain climatic suitability for species better than unprotected areas (P?相似文献   

海南岛生物多样性保护优先区评价与系统保护规划

选择海南岛140个濒危物种为指示物种,在物种栖息地评价的基础上,利用系统保护规划工具MARXAN模型进行迭代运算,提出了海南岛生物多样性保护优先区域,并对保护优先区进行评价.结果表明:海南岛保护优先区面积5383.7km2,占海南岛陆地面积的15.6%,集中分布于鹦哥岭、尖峰岭、五指山等林区和北部湿地;在保护优先区中,11个I级指示物种栖息地的保护比例均超过各自栖息地总面积的65%.通过对保护优先区与现有自然保护区的空缺分析,建议扩充尖峰岭保护区群、鹦哥岭-黎母山保护区群、五指山-吊罗山保护区群;新建抱龙林场-林鼻岭-福万岭保护体系;在海南岛北部建立以水源保护为主,同时兼顾珍稀物种保护的水源地保护带.     

Niche dynamics of Memecylon in Sri Lanka: Distribution patterns,climate change effects,and conservation priorities

Recent climate projections have shown that the distribution of organisms in island biotas is highly affected by climate change. Here, we present the result of the analysis of niche dynamics of a plant group, Memecylon, in Sri Lanka, an island, using species occurrences and climate data. We aim to determine which climate variables explain current distribution, model how climate change impacts the availability of suitable habitat for Memecylon, and determine conservation priority areas for Sri Lankan Memecylon. We used georeferenced occurrence data of Sri Lankan Memecylon to develop ecological niche models and assess both current and future potential distributions under six climate change scenarios in 2041–2060 and 2061–2080. We also overlaid land cover and protected area maps and performed a gap analysis to understand the impacts of land‐cover changes on Memecylon distributions and propose new areas for conservation. Differences among suitable habitats of Memecylon were found to be related to patterns of endemism. Under varying future climate scenarios, endemic groups were predicted to experience habitat shifts, gains, or losses. The narrow endemic Memecylon restricted to the montane zone were predicted to be the most impacted by climate change. Projections also indicated that changes in species’ habitats can be expected as early as 2041–2060. Gap analysis showed that while narrow endemic categories are considerably protected as demonstrated by their overlap with protected areas, more conservation efforts in Sri Lankan forests containing wide endemic and nonendemic Memecylon are needed. This research helped clarify general patterns of responses of Sri Lankan Memecylon to global climate change. Data from this study are useful for designing measures aimed at filling the gaps in forest conservation on this island.     

Allowing for human socioeconomic impacts in the conservation of plants under climate change

Abstract

The impact of climate change on conservation planning is affected by the availability of data (especially in data-sparse countries) and socioeconomic impacts. We build models using MaxEnt for Egyptian medicinal plants as a model system, projecting them to different future times under two IPCC 4th assessment emission scenarios (A2a and B2a) assuming unlimited and no dispersal. We compare the effect of two indices of socioeconomic activity [Human Influence Index (HII) and human population density/km²] as cost layers in spatial prioritization for conservation using zonation. We assess the efficacy of Egypt's network of Protected Areas (PAs) by comparing the predicted conservation value inside and outside each PA under the various scenarios. The results show that there are many locations in Egypt (the main cities, agricultural land, coastal areas) that are highly ranked for conservation before human socioeconomic impacts are included. The HII had a stronger impact than using human population density. The PA value excess (inside–outside) varied significantly with the type of cost and dispersal, but not with climate-change scenario or Zonation settings. We conclude that human socioeconomic impacts add new scope and insights for future conservation; and conservation planning without consideration of such impacts cannot be complete.     

Incorporating climate change adaptation into national conservation assessments

The Convention on Biological Diversity requires that member nations establish protected area networks that are representative of the country's biodiversity. The identification of priority sites to achieve outstanding representation targets is typically accomplished through formal conservation assessments. However, representation in conservation assessments or gap analyses has largely been interpreted based on a static view of biodiversity. In a rapidly changing climate, the speed of changes in biodiversity distribution and abundance is causing us to rethink the viability of this approach. Here we describe three explicit strategies for climate change adaptation as part of national conservation assessments: conserving the geophysical stage, identifying and protecting climate refugia, and promoting cross‐environment connectivity. We demonstrate how these three approaches were integrated into a national terrestrial conservation assessment for Papua New Guinea, one of the most biodiverse countries on earth. Protected areas identified based on representing geophysical diversity were able to capture over 90% of the diversity in vegetation communities, suggesting they could help protect representative biodiversity regardless of changes in the distribution of species and communities. By including climate change refugia as part of the national conservation assessment, it was possible to substantially reduce the amount of environmental change expected to be experienced within protected areas, without increasing the overall cost of the protected area network. Explicitly considering environmental heterogeneity between adjacent areas resulted in protected area networks with over 40% more internal environmental connectivity. These three climate change adaptation strategies represent defensible ways to guide national conservation priority given the uncertainty that currently exists in our ability to predict climate changes and their impacts. Importantly, they are also consistent with data and expertise typically available during national conservation assessments, including in developing nations. This means that in the vast majority of countries, these strategies could be implemented immediately.     

Applying a framework for landscape planning under climate change for the conservation of biodiversity in the Finnish boreal forest

Conservation strategies are often established without consideration of the impact of climate change. However, this impact is expected to threaten species and ecosystem persistence and to have dramatic effects towards the end of the 21st century. Landscape suitability for species under climate change is determined by several interacting factors including dispersal and human land use. Designing effective conservation strategies at regional scales to improve landscape suitability requires measuring the vulnerabilities of specific regions to climate change and determining their conservation capacities. Although methods for defining vulnerability categories are available, methods for doing this in a systematic, cost‐effective way have not been identified. Here, we use an ecosystem model to define the potential resilience of the Finnish forest landscape by relating its current conservation capacity to its vulnerability to climate change. In applying this framework, we take into account the responses to climate change of a broad range of red‐listed species with different niche requirements. This framework allowed us to identify four categories in which representation in the landscape varies among three IPCC emission scenarios (B1, low; A1B, intermediate; A2, high emissions): (i) susceptible (B1 = 24.7%, A1B = 26.4%, A2 = 26.2%), the most intact forest landscapes vulnerable to climate change, requiring management for heterogeneity and resilience; (ii) resilient (B1 = 2.2%, A1B = 0.5%, A2 = 0.6%), intact areas with low vulnerability that represent potential climate refugia and require conservation capacity maintenance; (iii) resistant (B1 = 6.7%, A1B = 0.8%, A2 = 1.1%), landscapes with low current conservation capacity and low vulnerability that are suitable for restoration projects; (iv) sensitive (B1 = 66.4%, A1B = 72.3%, A2 = 72.0%), low conservation capacity landscapes that are vulnerable and for which alternative conservation measures are required depending on the intensity of climate change. Our results indicate that the Finnish landscape is likely to be dominated by a very high proportion of sensitive and susceptible forest patches, thereby increasing uncertainty for landscape managers in the choice of conservation strategies.     

基于生物多样性的樟江流域自然保护地空间优化

优化生态保护空间格局是我国生态文明建设的重要内容,也是国际保护生态学研究的前沿方向。评估资源禀赋、识别并确定优先次序和预测保护区对保护和管理濒危物种至关重要。樟江流域内已占11.9%流域面积的保护区仍出现77.9%流域面积的生境显著退化,发展与保护亟待合理平衡。Zonation4GUI软件以互补性非穷尽式算法为基础,在优化已有保护网络并表征稀有性和独特性方面结果较为理想,以此展开樟江流域自然保护地空间整合优化路径研究。先人工预处理物种栖息地分布格局、物种保护权重、规划单元,并迭代选择输入性生境退化条件图层、保护代价图层,结合人工干扰情况提出三种不同情景下的优化方案。结果表明:保护优先区对代理物种栖息地有良好的覆盖效果,生态完整性优先情景和最小社会经济和土地资源代价的保护优化情景均呈现扩建小于8%的一级优先区域,所有保护对象均受到保护;加入27%左右的所有优先区域,两种优化方案覆盖所有保护对象栖息地的比例提升70.0%和59.0%。虽然生态完整性优先的优化情景优于最小社会经济和土地资源代价下的优化情景,但保护代价更高。人为干扰强烈的抢救优先的优化情景中, 90.7%的保护对象栖息地覆盖范...     

Scale‐dependent complementarity of climatic velocity and environmental diversity for identifying priority areas for conservation under climate change

As most regions of the earth transition to altered climatic conditions, new methods are needed to identify refugia and other areas whose conservation would facilitate persistence of biodiversity under climate change. We compared several common approaches to conservation planning focused on climate resilience over a broad range of ecological settings across North America and evaluated how commonalities in the priority areas identified by different methods varied with regional context and spatial scale. Our results indicate that priority areas based on different environmental diversity metrics differed substantially from each other and from priorities based on spatiotemporal metrics such as climatic velocity. Refugia identified by diversity or velocity metrics were not strongly associated with the current protected area system, suggesting the need for additional conservation measures including protection of refugia. Despite the inherent uncertainties in predicting future climate, we found that variation among climatic velocities derived from different general circulation models and emissions pathways was less than the variation among the suite of environmental diversity metrics. To address uncertainty created by this variation, planners can combine priorities identified by alternative metrics at a single resolution and downweight areas of high variation between metrics. Alternately, coarse‐resolution velocity metrics can be combined with fine‐resolution diversity metrics in order to leverage the respective strengths of the two groups of metrics as tools for identification of potential macro‐ and microrefugia that in combination maximize both transient and long‐term resilience to climate change. Planners should compare and integrate approaches that span a range of model complexity and spatial scale to match the range of ecological and physical processes influencing persistence of biodiversity and identify a conservation network resilient to threats operating at multiple scales.     

时空变化视角下北京市湿地优先保护格局

气候变化通过改变湿地水文过程等影响湿地的空间分布,城市化进程加剧了湿地破碎化程度并导致湿地生境退化,构建连续的湿地生态保护网络体系有利于应对气候变化和城市发展带来的负面影响、提高生物多样性保护水平。北京市现有湿地空间分布呈现斑块面积小、破碎化程度高等特点,为优化湿地保护区格局并应对气候变化和城市发展对北京市湿地生物多样性的影响,基于系统保护规划方法,以Marxan作为空间优化模型,结合PLUS模型和MaxEnt模型,模拟预测北京市湿地优先保护格局、识别湿地保护空缺并构建湿地分级保护区格局。研究表明:2020年北京市湿地存在80.15km²的保护空缺、2035年和2050年优化后湿地保护区占比分别为87.54%和85.95%,在满足本研究预设的生物多样性保护目标的前提下符合北京市湿地保护规划对湿地保护率的要求。为最优化资源分配,综合时空变化对湿地保护区空间分布的影响,构建了湿地分级保护区格局,将湿地保护区分为湿地永久保护区、湿地一级临时保护区和湿地二级临时保护区三个等级,以期为北京市分期建设湿地保护区、优化湿地生态保护网络体系和保护湿地生物多样性提供依据。     

Vulnerability of dynamic genetic conservation units of forest trees in Europe to climate change

A transnational network of genetic conservation units for forest trees was recently documented in Europe aiming at the conservation of evolutionary processes and the adaptive potential of natural or man‐made tree populations. In this study, we quantified the vulnerability of individual conservation units and the whole network to climate change using climate favourability models and the estimated velocity of climate change. Compared to the overall climate niche of the analysed target species populations at the warm and dry end of the species niche are underrepresented in the network. However, by 2100, target species in 33–65 % of conservation units, mostly located in southern Europe, will be at the limit or outside the species' current climatic niche as demonstrated by favourabilities below required model sensitivities of 95%. The highest average decrease in favourabilities throughout the network can be expected for coniferous trees although they are mainly occurring within units in mountainous landscapes for which we estimated lower velocities of change. Generally, the species‐specific estimates of favourabilities showed only low correlations to the velocity of climate change in individual units, indicating that both vulnerability measures should be considered for climate risk analysis. The variation in favourabilities among target species within the same conservation units is expected to increase with climate change and will likely require a prioritization among co‐occurring species. The present results suggest that there is a strong need to intensify monitoring efforts and to develop additional conservation measures for populations in the most vulnerable units. Also, our results call for continued transnational actions for genetic conservation of European forest trees, including the establishment of dynamic conservation populations outside the current species distribution ranges within European assisted migration schemes.     

Identifying priority areas for reducing species vulnerability to climate change

Aim The dimensions of species vulnerability to climate change are complex, and this impedes efforts to provide clear advice for conservation planning. In this study, we used a formal framework to assess species vulnerability to climate change quantifying exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity and then used this information to target areas for reducing vulnerability at a regional scale. Location The 6500‐km² Mount Lofty Ranges region in South Australia. Methods We quantified the vulnerability of 171 plant species in a fragmented yet biologically important agro‐ecological landscape, typical of many temperate zones globally. We specified exposure, using three climate change scenarios; sensitivity, as the adverse impact of climate change on species’ spatial distribution; and adaptive capacity, as the ability of species to migrate calculated using dispersal kernels. Priority areas for reducing vulnerability were then identified by incorporating these various components into a single priority index. Results Climate change had a variable impact on species distributions. Those species whose range decreased or shifted geographically were attributed higher sensitivity than those species that increased geographic range or remained unchanged. The ability to adapt to range changes in response to shifting climates varies both spatially and between species. Areas of highest priority for reducing vulnerability were found at higher altitudes and lower latitudes with increasing severity of climate change. Main conclusions Our study demonstrates the use of a single spatially explicit index that identifies areas in the landscape for targeting specific conservation and restoration actions to reduce species vulnerability to climate change. Our index can be transferred to other regions around the world in which climate change poses an increasing threat to native species.