Climate change-integrated conservation strategies

Aim Conservation strategies currently include little consideration of climate change. Insights about the biotic impacts of climate change from biogeography and palaeoecology, therefore, have the potential to provide significant improvements in the effectiveness of conservation planning. We suggest a collaboration involving biogeography, ecology and applied conservation. The resulting Climate Change‐integrated Conservation Strategies (CCS) apply available tools to respond to the conservation challenges posed by climate change. Location The focus of this analysis is global, with special reference to high biodiversity areas vulnerable to climate change, particularly tropical montane settings. Methods Current tools from climatology, biogeography and ecology applicable to conservation planning in response to climate change are reviewed. Conservation challenges posed by climate change are summarized. CCS elements are elaborated that use available tools to respond to these challenges. Results Five elements of CCS are described: regional modelling; expanding protected areas; management of the matrix; regional coordination; and transfer of resources. Regional modelling uses regional climate models, biotic response models and sensitivity analysis to identify climate change impacts on biodiversity at a regional scale appropriate for conservation planning. Expansion of protected areas management and systems within the planning region are based on modelling results. Management of the matrix between protected areas provides continuity for processes and species range shifts outside of parks. Regional coordination of park and off‐park efforts allows harmonization of conservation goals across provincial and national boundaries. Finally, implementation of these CCS elements in the most biodiverse regions of the world will require technical and financial transfer of resources on a global scale. Main conclusions Collaboration across disciplines is necessary to plan conservation responses to climate change adequately. Biogeography and ecology provide insights into the effects of climate change on biodiversity that have not yet been fully integrated into conservation biology and applied conservation management. CCS provide a framework in which biogeographers, ecologists and conservation managers can collaborate to address this need. These planning exercises take place on a regional level, driven by regional climate models as well as general circulation models (GCMs), to ensure that regional climate drivers such as land use change and mesoscale topography are adequately represented. Sensitivity analysis can help address the substantial uncertainty inherent in projecting future climates and biodiversity response.     

Southern Hemisphere biodiversity and global change: Data gaps and strategies

Long‐term datasets needed to detect the impacts of global change on southern biodiversity are still scarce and often incomplete, challenging adaptation planning and conservation management. Biological data are probably most limited in arid countries and from the oceans, where natural environmental variability (‘noise’) means that long time series are required to detect the ‘signal’ of directional change. Significant national and international investment and collaboration are needed for most southern nations to reliably track biodiversity trends and improve conservation adaptation to rapid climate change. Emerging early warning systems for biodiversity, incorporating regional environmental change drivers, citizen science and regional partnerships, can all help to compensate for existing information gaps and contribute to adaptation planning.     

Forest biodiversity in a changing climate: which logic for conservation strategies?

Climate change has direct and indirect impacts on forest ecosystems worldwide. In this context, changing site conditions and altered disturbance regimes as well as forest management responses are challenging the conservation of biodiversity in forests. Climate-induced dynamics and uncertainties related to future forest ecosystem development are calling into question current conservation strategies and concepts. Given the longevity of trees, slow development rates of forest ecosystems and slow migration rates of many forest species, the planning of adaptation measures in response to climate change are especially difficult though highly important for forest biodiversity conservation. This paper introduces a special issue with eight contributions which deal with a variety of aspects of forest biodiversity conservation in the face of climate change. More specifically, the papers address direct impacts of climate change on forest biodiversity, adaptation measures for forest and conservation management, as well as resulting challenges for conservation strategies and concepts. In conclusion, adaptation measures that enhance diversity and provide different options for future action, thereby maintaining ecosystems’ resilience, as well as conservation management operating on a landscape level, are promoted as being beneficial for coping with uncertainties related to climate change. Adaptive management, which constantly reviews conservation goals and measures, and which takes into account both science-based and local ecological knowledge on climate change can be a valuable tool to inform decisions for forest biodiversity conservation.     

Projecting climate change impacts on species distributions in megadiverse South African Cape and Southwest Australian Floristic Regions: Opportunities and challenges

Increasing evidence shows that anthropogenic climate change is affecting biodiversity. Reducing or stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions may slow global warming, but past emissions will continue to contribute to further unavoidable warming for more than a century. With obvious signs of difficulties in achieving effective mitigation worldwide in the short term at least, sound scientific predictions of future impacts on biodiversity will be required to guide conservation planning and adaptation. This is especially true in Mediterranean type ecosystems that are projected to be among the most significantly affected by anthropogenic climate change, and show the highest levels of confidence in rainfall projections. Multiple methods are available for projecting the consequences of climate change on the main unit of interest – the species – with each method having strengths and weaknesses. Species distribution models (SDMs) are increasingly applied for forecasting climate change impacts on species geographic ranges. Aggregation of models for different species allows inferences of impacts on biodiversity, though excluding the effects of species interactions. The modelling approach is based on several further assumptions and projections and should be treated cautiously. In the absence of comparable approaches that address large numbers of species, SDMs remain valuable in estimating the vulnerability of species. In this review we discuss the application of SDMs in predicting the impacts of climate change on biodiversity with special reference to the species‐rich South West Australian Floristic Region and South African Cape Floristic Region. We discuss the advantages and challenges in applying SDMs in biodiverse regions with high levels of endemicity, and how a similar biogeographical history in both regions may assist us in understanding their vulnerability to climate change. We suggest how the process of predicting the impacts of climate change on biodiversity with SDMs can be improved and emphasize the role of field monitoring and experiments in validating the predictions of SDMs.     

Adapting systematic conservation planning for climate change

With the high rate of ecosystem change, effective systematic conservation planning must account for ongoing and imminent threats to biodiversity to ensure its persistence. Accordingly, guidance on appropriate conservation actions in the face of climate change has been accumulating. We review this guidance and bring together the key recommendations needed to successfully account for climate change impacts, relevant to the scale at which natural resource management is carried out. We discuss how the traditional conservation tools of protection and restoration need to be adjusted to be effective in the face of climate change. We highlight the conservation innovations such as moveable and temporary reserves, and Targeted Gene Flow. We build on recent work to provide critical advice for considering climate change in conservation planning. In particular, we discuss how stating explicit objectives related to climate change adaptation, quantifying uncertainty, and exploring trade-offs will better place conservation plans to meet objectives for multiple goals such as protection of species, ecosystems, geophysical diversity and ecological processes.     

自然保护区减缓和适应气候变化的管理有效性评估: 以广西12个典型自然保护区为例

建立自然保护区是生物多样性保护的根本措施, 而且自然保护区对减缓和适应气候变化具有重要的作用。生物多样性保护的压力在气候变化的胁迫下不断加剧, 因此, 有效的自然保护区管理必须考虑气候变化的影响。发展应对气候变化威胁的适应性管理技术以提高自然保护区管理有效性是自然保护区管理的迫切需求。但目前全球范围内还没有针对减缓和适应气候变化的自然保护区管理有效性评估工具。近半个世纪来广西气温持续升高且极端气候事件频次增加, 对广西各类生物生境产生了重要的影响。本文基于世界自然保护联盟(IUCN)的自然保护区减缓和适应气候变化管理框架和管理有效性评估框架, 在管理有效性跟踪工具(mangement effectiveness tracking tool, METT)基础上提出了自然保护区减缓和适应气候变化管理有效性评估工具(management effectiveness assessment tool of mitigation and adaptation on climate change, MEATMACC), 并使用该工具和METT对广西12个典型自然保护区进行了调查分析。结果表明: 国家级自然保护区的METT得分、MEATMACC得分分别比非国家级自然保护区高28.98%和43.91%; 国家级与非国家级自然保护区的METT得分无显著差异, 但MEATMACC得分差异极显著; 两个管理有效性评估工具得分率呈线性相关但差异不显著; 两个评估工具中背景、规划与影响3个要素得分率存在极显著差异。研究结果表明, 对于自然保护区减缓和适应气候变化的政策和技术支持仍需加强。     

Conservation Status of North American Birds in the Face of Future Climate Change

Human-induced climate change is increasingly recognized as a fundamental driver of biological processes and patterns. Historic climate change is known to have caused shifts in the geographic ranges of many taxa and future climate change is expected to result in even greater redistributions of species. As a result, predicting the impact of climate change on future patterns of biodiversity will greatly aid conservation planning. Using the North American Breeding Bird Survey and Audubon Christmas Bird Count, two of the most comprehensive continental datasets of vertebrates in the world, and correlative distribution modeling, we assessed geographic range shifts for 588 North American bird species during both the breeding and non-breeding seasons under a range of future emission scenarios (SRES A2, A1B, B2) through the end of the century. Here we show that 314 species (53%) are projected to lose more than half of their current geographic range across three scenarios of climate change through the end of the century. For 126 species, loss occurs without concomitant range expansion; whereas for 188 species, loss is coupled with potential to colonize new replacement range. We found no strong associations between projected climate sensitivities and existing conservation prioritizations. Moreover, species responses were not clearly associated with habitat affinities, migration strategies, or climate change scenarios. Our results demonstrate the need to include climate sensitivity into current conservation planning and to develop adaptive management strategies that accommodate shrinking and shifting geographic ranges. The persistence of many North American birds will depend on their ability to colonize climatically suitable areas outside of current ranges and management actions that target climate adaptation.     

生物多样性保护适应气候变化的管理策略

应对气候变化和保护生物多样性是2大全球性热点环境问题。气候变化导致物种多样性丧失、生态系统服务降低和区域生态安全屏障功能受损,威胁到中国国土生态安全格局和生态脆弱区域的可持续发展,给生物多样性保护带来新的挑战。做好生物多样性保护适应气候变化的风险管理工作,既是生物多样性应对气候变化风险的必要措施,也是减缓气候变化的重要途径。结合爱知目标10的实现情况,分析了欧盟、澳大利亚、美国等发达国家发布的生物多样性适应气候变化技术政策制定情况、中国生物多样性应对气候变化进展情况,剖析了中国生物多样性保护适应气候变化存在的问题,包括生物多样性应对气候变化的科学认知亟待提高、生物多样性保护适应气候变化的能力建设不足、自然保护地之间缺乏适应气候变化的生态廊道网络、生物多样性保护适应气候变化的技术标准缺乏。研究提出了中国生物多样性应对气候变化的适应性管理策略,包括制定《中国生物多样性保护协同应对气候变化的国家方案》、加强生物多样性保护适应气候变化的能力建设、开展自然保护区适应气候变化的风险管理试点、强化生物多样性应对气候变化的科技支撑,以期为推进纳入气候变化风险管理的生物多样性保护工作提供决策依据。     

Protecting rare and endangered species under climate change on the Qinghai Plateau,China

Climate change‐induced species range shift may pose severe challenges to species conservation. The Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau is the highest and biggest plateau, and also one of the most sensitive areas to global warming in the world, which provides important shelters for a unique assemblage of species. Here, ecological niche‐based model was employed to project the potential distributions of 59 key rare and endangered species under three climate change scenarios (RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) in Qinghai Province. I assessed the potential impacts of climate change on these key species (habitats, species richness and turnover) and effectiveness of nature reserves (NRs) in protecting these species. The results revealed that that climate change would shrink the geographic ranges of about a third studied species and expand the habitats for two thirds of these species, which would thus alter the conservation value of some local areas and conservation effectiveness of some NRs in Qinghai Province. Some regions require special attention as they are expected to experience significant changes in species turnover, species richness or newly colonized species in the future, including Haidong, Haibei and Haixi junctions, the southwestern Yushu, Qinghai Nuomuhong Provincial NR, Qinghai Qaidam and Haloxylon Forest NR. The Haidong and the eastern part of Haibei, are projected to have high species richness and conservation value in both current and future, but they are currently not protected, and thus require extra protection in the future. The results could provide the first basis on the high latitude region to formulate biodiversity conservation strategies on climate change adaptation.     

Incorporating climate change adaptation into marine protected area planning

Climate change is increasingly impacting marine protected areas (MPAs) and MPA networks, yet adaptation strategies are rarely incorporated into MPA design and management plans according to the primary scientific literature. Here we review the state of knowledge for adapting existing and future MPAs to climate change and synthesize case studies (n = 27) of how marine conservation planning can respond to shifting environmental conditions. First, we derive a generalized conservation planning framework based on five published frameworks that incorporate climate change adaptation to inform MPA design. We then summarize examples from the scientific literature to assess how conservation goals were defined, vulnerability assessments performed and adaptation strategies incorporated into the design and management of existing or new MPAs. Our analysis revealed that 82% of real‐world examples of climate change adaptation in MPA planning derive from tropical reefs, highlighting the need for research in other ecosystems and habitat types. We found contrasting recommendations for adaptation strategies at the planning stage, either focusing only on climate refugia, or aiming for representative protection of areas encompassing the full range of expected climate change impacts. Recommendations for MPA management were more unified and focused on adaptative management approaches. Lastly, we evaluate common barriers to adopting climate change adaptation strategies based on reviewing studies which conducted interviews with MPA managers and other conservation practitioners. This highlights a lack of scientific studies evaluating different adaptation strategies and shortcomings in current governance structures as two major barriers, and we discuss how these could be overcome. Our review provides a comprehensive synthesis of planning frameworks, case studies, adaptation strategies and management actions which can inform a more coordinated global effort to adapt existing and future MPA networks to continued climate change.     

A climatic stability approach to prioritizing global conservation investments

Climate change is impacting species and ecosystems globally. Many existing templates to identify the most important areas to conserve terrestrial biodiversity at the global scale neglect the future impacts of climate change. Unstable climatic conditions are predicted to undermine conservation investments in the future. This paper presents an approach to developing a resource allocation algorithm for conservation investment that incorporates the ecological stability of ecoregions under climate change. We discover that allocating funds in this way changes the optimal schedule of global investments both spatially and temporally. This allocation reduces the biodiversity loss of terrestrial endemic species from protected areas due to climate change by 22% for the period of 2002-2052, when compared to allocations that do not consider climate change. To maximize the resilience of global biodiversity to climate change we recommend that funding be increased in ecoregions located in the tropics and/or mid-elevation habitats, where climatic conditions are predicted to remain relatively stable. Accounting for the ecological stability of ecoregions provides a realistic approach to incorporating climate change into global conservation planning, with potential to save more species from extinction in the long term.     

Future oriented conservation: knowledge governance,uncertainty and learning

Despite significant progress in understanding climate risks, adaptation efforts in biodiversity conservation remain limited. Adaptation requires addressing immediate conservation threats while also attending to long term, highly uncertain and potentially transformative future changes. To date, conservation research has focused more on projecting climate impacts and identifying possible strategies, rather than understanding how governance enables or constrains adaptation actions. We outline an approach to future-oriented conservation that combines the capacities to anticipate future ecological change; to understand the implications of that change for social, political and ecological values; and the ability to engage with the governance (and politics) of adaptation. Our approach builds on the adaptive management and governance literature, however we explicitly address the (often contested) rules, knowledge and values that enable or constrain adaptation. We call for a broader focus that extends beyond technical approaches to acknowledge the socio-political challenges inherent to adaptation. More importantly, we suggest that conservation policy makers and practitioners can use this approach to facilitate learning and adaptation in the context of complexity, transformational change and uncertainty.     

Climate change and plant dispersal along corridors in fragmented landscapes of Mesoamerica

Climate change is a threat to biodiversity, and adaptation measures should be considered in biodiversity conservation planning. Protected areas (PA) are expected to be impacted by climate change and improving their connectivity with biological corridors (BC) has been proposed as a potential adaptation measure, although assessing its effectiveness remains a challenge. In Mesoamerica, efforts to preserve the biodiversity have led to the creation of a regional network of PA and, more recently, BC. This study evaluates the role of BC for facilitating plant dispersal between PA under climate change in Mesoamerica. A spatially explicit dynamic model (cellular automaton) was developed to simulate species dispersal under different climate and conservation policy scenarios. Plant functional types (PFT) were defined based on a range of dispersal rates and vegetation types to represent the diversity of species in the region. The impacts of climate change on PA and the role of BC for dispersal were assessed spatially. Results show that most impacted PA are those with low altitudinal range in hot, dry, or high latitude areas. PA with low altitudinal range in high cool areas benefit the most from corridors. The most important corridors cover larger areas and have high altitude gradients. Only the fastest PFT can keep up with the expected change in climate and benefit from corridors for dispersal. We conclude that the spatial assessment of the vulnerability of PA and the role of corridors in facilitating dispersal can help conservation planning under a changing climate.     

Predicting impacts of climate change on biodiversity: a role for semi‐mechanistic community‐level modelling

Aim Robust and reliable predictions of the effects of climate change on biodiversity are required in formulating conservation and management strategies that best retain biodiversity into the future. Significant challenges in modelling climate change impacts arise from limitations in our current knowledge of biodiversity. Community‐level modelling can complement species‐level approaches in overcoming these limitations and predicting climate change impacts on biodiversity as a whole. However, the community‐level approaches applied to date have been largely correlative, ignoring the key processes that influence change in biodiversity over space and time. Here, we suggest that the development of new ‘semi‐mechanistic’ community‐level models would substantially increase our capacity to predict climate change impacts on biodiversity. Location Global. Methods Drawing on an expansive review of biodiversity modelling approaches and recent advances in semi‐mechanistic modelling at the species level, we outline the main elements of a new semi‐mechanistic community‐level modelling approach. Results Our quantitative review revealed a sharp divide between mechanistic and non‐mechanistic biodiversity modelling approaches, with very few semi‐mechanistic models developed to date. Main conclusions We suggest that the conceptual framework presented here for combining mechanistic and non‐mechanistic community‐level approaches offers a promising means of incorporating key processes into predictions of climate change impacts on biodiversity whilst working within the limits of our current knowledge.     

Mediterranean island biodiversity and climate change: the last 10,000 years and the future

Mediterranean islands (MI) are hotspots of global biodiversity and lie in one of the most susceptible to climate change (CC) areas of the world; a big challenge for any conservation strategy. In fact, there is already increasing evidence for CC in the region and associated biological responses in MI ecosystems. These include phenological changes and upward elevation shifts of species and plant communities; although evidence is frequently contrasting for different taxa. Threats are also evident, mainly for endemic species from most taxonomic groups, while communities in mountain and coastal regions are likely to be affected most. For MI conservation under CC additional factors need to be considered: (i) their position at the crossroads of three continents; with which they share common environmental characteristics, (ii) their great variability in sizes and topography and (iii) their climatic differences; with a clear west-east basin divide. CC synergies with changing tourist aspiration and agricultural practices will, in the medium term, modify island landscapes and provide further challenges for biodiversity conservation. Such a combined impact from CC, land-use change, fragmentation of habitats and tourism is difficult to predict. Furthermore, the limited space on islands (especially habitat availability and climatic range limitations) imposes a barrier to species range expansion. Thus, conservation of MI biodiversity under CC requires: (i) future research to focus on improved climate predictions linked to improved understanding of ecological (climate-biotic) responses, incorporating lessons learnt from (island) biogeography, (ii) specific adaptation measures for spatial planning and improvement in regional institutional capacities.     

Land Use Compounds Habitat Losses under Projected Climate Change in a Threatened California Ecosystem

Given the rapidly growing human population in mediterranean-climate systems, land use may pose a more immediate threat to biodiversity than climate change this century, yet few studies address the relative future impacts of both drivers. We assess spatial and temporal patterns of projected 21^st century land use and climate change on California sage scrub (CSS), a plant association of considerable diversity and threatened status in the mediterranean-climate California Floristic Province. Using a species distribution modeling approach combined with spatially-explicit land use projections, we model habitat loss for 20 dominant shrub species under unlimited and no dispersal scenarios at two time intervals (early and late century) in two ecoregions in California (Central Coast and South Coast). Overall, projected climate change impacts were highly variable across CSS species and heavily dependent on dispersal assumptions. Projected anthropogenic land use drove greater relative habitat losses compared to projected climate change in many species. This pattern was only significant under assumptions of unlimited dispersal, however, where considerable climate-driven habitat gains offset some concurrent climate-driven habitat losses. Additionally, some of the habitat gained with projected climate change overlapped with projected land use. Most species showed potential northern habitat expansion and southern habitat contraction due to projected climate change, resulting in sharply contrasting patterns of impact between Central and South Coast Ecoregions. In the Central Coast, dispersal could play an important role moderating losses from both climate change and land use. In contrast, high geographic overlap in habitat losses driven by projected climate change and projected land use in the South Coast underscores the potential for compounding negative impacts of both drivers. Limiting habitat conversion may be a broadly beneficial strategy under climate change. We emphasize the importance of addressing both drivers in conservation and resource management planning.     

Using custom scientific workflow software and GIS to inform protected area climate adaptation planning in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

Anticipating the ecological effects of climate change to inform natural resource climate adaptation planning represents one of the primary challenges of contemporary conservation science. Species distribution models have become a widely used tool to generate first-pass estimates of climate change impacts to species probabilities of occurrence. There are a number of technical challenges to constructing species distribution models that can be alleviated by the use of scientific workflow software. These challenges include data integration, visualization of modeled predictor–response relationships, and ensuring that models are reproducible and transferable in an adaptive natural resource management framework. We used freely available software called VisTrails Software for Assisted Habitat Modeling (VisTrails:SAHM) along with a novel ecohydrological predictor dataset and the latest Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 future climate projections to construct species distribution models for eight forest and shrub species in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in the Northern Rocky Mountains USA. The species considered included multiple species of sagebrush and juniper, Pinus flexilis, Pinus contorta, Pseudotsuga menziesii, Populus tremuloides, Abies lasciocarpa, Picea engelmannii, and Pinus albicaulis. Current and future species probabilities of occurrence were mapped in a GIS by land ownership category to assess the feasibility of undertaking present and future management action. Results suggested that decreasing spring snowpack and increasing late-season soil moisture deficit will lead to deteriorating habitat area for mountain forest species and expansion of habitat area for sagebrush and juniper communities. Results were consistent across nine global climate models and two representative concentration pathway scenarios. For most forest species their projected future distributions moved up in elevation from general federal to federally restricted lands where active management is currently prohibited by agency policy. Though not yet fully mature, custom scientific workflow software shows considerable promise to ease many of the technical challenges inherent in modeling the potential ecological impacts of climate change to support climate adaptation planning.     

气候变化与生物多样性之间的复杂关系和反馈机制

气候变化与生物多样性丧失是人类社会正在经历的两大变化。气候变化影响生物多样性的方方面面, 是导致生物多样性丧失的一个主要驱动因子; 反过来, 生物多样性丧失会加剧气候变化。因此, 阻止甚至扭转气候变化和生物多样性丧失是当前人类社会亟需解决的全球性问题,但我们对气候变化与生物多样性之间的复杂关系和反馈机制尚缺乏清晰认识。本文总结了近年气候变化与生物多样性变化的研究进展, 重点概述了不同组织层次、空间尺度和维度的生物多样性对气候变化的响应和反馈等相关领域的研究进展和存在的主要问题。结果发现多数研究关注气候变化对生物多样性的直接影响, 涉及到生物多样性的不同组织层次、维度和营养级, 但针对气候变化间接影响的研究仍然较少, 机理研究同样需要加强; 生物多样性对生态系统功能影响的环境依赖和尺度推演、生物多样性对生态系统多功能性的作用机理和量化方法是当前研究面临的挑战; 生物多样性对生态系统响应气候变化的作用机制尚无统一的认识; 生物多样性对气候变化的正、负反馈效应是国内外研究的盲点。最后, 本文展望了未来发展方向和需要解决的关键科学问题, 包括多因子气候变化对生物多样性的影响; 减缓和适应气候变化的措施如何惠益于生物多样性保护; 生物多样性与生态系统功能的理论如何应用到现实世界; 生物多样性保护对实现碳中和目标的贡献。     

Potential aboveground biomass increase in Brazilian Atlantic Forest fragments with climate change

Fragmented tropical forest landscapes preserve much of the remaining biodiversity and carbon stocks. Climate change is expected to intensify droughts and increase fire hazard and fire intensities, thereby causing habitat deterioration, and losses of biodiversity and carbon stock losses. Understanding the trajectories that these landscapes may follow under increased climate pressure is imperative for establishing strategies for conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Here, we used a quantitative predictive modelling approach to project the spatial distribution of the aboveground biomass density (AGB) by the end of the 21st century across the Brazilian Atlantic Forest (AF) domain. To develop the models, we used the maximum entropy method with projected climate data to 2100, based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 from the fifth Assessment Report. Our AGB models had a satisfactory performance (area under the curve > 0.75 and p value < .05). The models projected a significant increase of 8.5% in the total carbon stock. Overall, the projections indicated that 76.9% of the AF domain would have suitable climatic conditions for increasing biomass by 2100 considering the RCP 4.5 scenario, in the absence of deforestation. Of the existing forest fragments, 34.7% are projected to increase their AGB, while 2.6% are projected to have their AGB reduced by 2100. The regions likely to lose most AGB—up to 40% compared to the baseline—are found between latitudes 13° and 20° south. Overall, although climate change effects on AGB vary latitudinally for the 2071–2100 period under the RCP 4.5 scenario, our model indicates that AGB stocks can potentially increase across a large fraction of the AF. The patterns found here are recommended to be taken into consideration during the planning of restoration efforts, as part of climate change mitigation strategies in the AF and elsewhere in Brazil.