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Planning for the future: identifying conservation priority areas for Iberian birds under climate change

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Abstract

Context

Species are expected to shift their distributions in response to global environmental changes and additional protected areas are needed to encompass the corresponding changes in the distributions of their habitats. Conservation policies are likely to become obsolete unless they integrate the potential impacts of climate and land-use change on biodiversity.

Objectives

We identify conservation priority areas for current and future projected distributions of Iberian bird species. We then investigate the extent to which global change informed priority areas are: (i) covered by existing protected area networks (national protected areas and Natura 2000); (ii) threatened by agricultural or urban land-use changes.

Methods

We use outputs of species distributions models fitted with climatic data as inputs in spatial prioritization tools to identify conservation priority areas for 168 bird species. We use projections of land-use change to then discriminate between threatened and non-threatened priority areas.

Results

19% of the priority areas for birds are covered by national protected areas and 23% are covered by Natura 2000 sites. The spatial mismatch between protected area networks and priority areas for birds is projected to increase with climate change. But there are opportunities to improve the protection of birds under climate change, as half of the priority areas are currently neither protected nor in conflict with urban or agricultural land-uses.

Conclusions

We identify critical areas for bird conservation both under current and climate change conditions, and propose that they could guide the establishment of new conservation areas across the Iberian Peninsula complementing existing protected areas.

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Acknowledgements

M.T. thanks Wilfried Thuiller, the participants of the Ibiochange Lab Retreat, the jury of her PhD defense and people from the Journal Club in Jyväskylä for insightful comments and suggestions. M.T. also thanks the Metapopulation Research Centre at the University of Helsinki for providing the supportive environment in which much of this work was developed. We thank two anonymous reviewers and the associated editor for their helpful comments. M.T. is supported by a FPI-MICINN fellowship and KONE foundation; H.K. by the LUOVA Doctoral Programme and the Australian National Environmental Research Program (NERP); M.C. by the Academy of Finland (Grant #257686).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Biogeografía y Cambio Global, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, C/José Gutiérrez Abascal, 2, 28006, Madrid, Spain

    María Triviño & Miguel B. Araújo

  2. Department of Biological and Environmental Science, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, 40014, Jyväskylä, Finland

    María Triviño

  3. Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Metapopulation Research Centre, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 65 (Biocenter III), 00014, Helsinki, Finland

    Heini Kujala & Mar Cabeza

  4. Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, Building 3, 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Miguel B. Araújo

  5. Rui Nabeiro Biodiversity Chair, University of Évora, 7000-890, Évora, Portugal

    Miguel B. Araújo

Authors
  1. María Triviño
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  2. Heini Kujala
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  3. Miguel B. Araújo
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  4. Mar Cabeza
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Correspondence to María Triviño.

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Triviño, M., Kujala, H., Araújo, M.B. et al. Planning for the future: identifying conservation priority areas for Iberian birds under climate change. Landscape Ecol 33, 659–673 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-018-0626-z

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