National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA.
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA.
Glob Chang Biol. 2021 May;27(9):1788-1801. doi: 10.1111/gcb.15511. Epub 2021 Feb 11.
Climate adaptation strategies are being developed and implemented to protect biodiversity from the impacts of climate change. A well-established strategy involves the identification and addition of new areas for conservation, and most countries agreed in 2010 to expand the global protected area (PA) network to 17% by 2020 (Aichi Biodiversity Target 11). Although great efforts to expand the global PA network have been made, the potential of newly established PAs to conserve biodiversity under future climate change remains unclear at the global scale. Here, we conducted the first global-extent, country-level assessment of the contribution of PA network expansion toward three key land prioritization approaches for biodiversity persistence under climate change: protecting climate refugia, protecting abiotic diversity, and increasing connectivity. These approaches avoid uncertainties of biodiversity predictions under climate change as well as the issue of undescribed species. We found that 51% of the countries created new PAs in locations with lower mean climate velocity (representing better climate refugia) and 58% added PAs in areas with higher mean abiotic diversity compared to the available, non-human-dominated lands not chosen for protection. However, connectivity among PAs declined in 53% of the countries, indicating that many new PAs were located far from existing PAs. Lastly, we identified potential improvements for climate adaptation, showing that 94% of the countries have the opportunity to improve in executing one or more approaches to conserve biodiversity. Most countries (60%) were associated with multiple opportunities, highlighting the need for integrative strategies that target multiple land protection approaches. Our results demonstrate that a global improvement in the protection of climate refugia, abiotic diversity, and connectivity of reserves is needed to complement land protection informed by existing and projected species distributions. Our study also provides a framework for countries to prioritize land protection for climate adaptation using publicly available data.
气候变化适应战略正在制定和实施中，以保护生物多样性免受气候变化的影响。一个成熟的策略包括确定和增加新的保护区，大多数国家在 2010 年同意到 2020 年将全球保护区网络扩大到 17%（爱知生物多样性目标 11）。尽管为扩大全球保护区网络做出了巨大努力，但在全球范围内，新建立的保护区在未来气候变化下保护生物多样性的潜力尚不清楚。在这里，我们首次在全球范围内、国家层面评估了保护区网络扩大对三种关键的土地优先化方法在气候变化下保护生物多样性的贡献：保护气候避难所、保护非生物多样性和增加连通性。这些方法避免了气候变化下生物多样性预测的不确定性以及未描述物种的问题。我们发现，51%的国家在平均气候速度较低（代表更好的气候避难所）的地方建立了新的保护区，58%的国家在平均非生物多样性较高的地方增加了保护区，而这些地方与未选择用于保护的现有、非人为主导的土地相比。然而，53%的国家的保护区之间的连通性下降，表明许多新的保护区距离现有的保护区很远。最后，我们确定了适应气候变化的潜在改进措施，表明 94%的国家有机会改进一种或多种保护生物多样性的方法。大多数国家（60%）都有多种机会，这突出表明需要采取综合战略，针对多种土地保护方法。我们的研究结果表明，需要全球范围内改善保护气候避难所、非生物多样性和保护区的连通性，以补充基于现有和预测物种分布的土地保护。我们的研究还为各国提供了一个使用公开可用数据优先考虑土地保护以适应气候变化的框架。
