Marine protected area (MPA) efficacy is increasingly challenged by climate change. Experts have identified clear climate change adaptation principles that MPA practitioners can incorporate into MPA management; however, adoption of these principles in MPA management remains largely unquantified. We conducted a text analysis of 647 English-language MPA management plans to assess the frequency with which they included climate change-related terms and terms pertaining to ecological, physical, and sociological components of an MPA system that may be impacted by climate change. Next, we manually searched 223 management plans to quantify the plans’ climate change robustness, which we defined as the degree of incorporation of common climate change adaptation principles. We found that climate change is inadequately considered in MPA management plans. Of all plans published since 2010, only 57% contained at least one of the climate change-related terms, “climate change,” “global warming,” “extreme events,” “natural variability,” or “climate variability.” The mean climate change robustness index of climate-considering management plans was 10.9 or 39% of a total possible score of 28. The United States was the only region that had plans with climate robustness indices of 20 or greater. By contrast, Canada lags behind other temperate jurisdictions in incorporating climate change adaptation analysis, planning, and monitoring into MPA management, with a mean climate change robustness index of 6.8. Climate change robustness scores have generally improved over time within the most common MPA designations in Oceania, the United Kingdom, and the United States, though the opposite is true in Canada. Our results highlight the urgent need for practitioners to incorporate climate change adaptation into MPA management in accordance with well-researched frameworks.

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are important conservation tools that can support the resilience of marine ecosystems. Many countries, including Canada, have committed to protecting at least 10% of their marine areas under the Convention on Biological Diversity's Aichi Target 11, which includes connectivity as a key aspect. Connectivity, the movement of individuals among habitats, can enhance population stability and resilience within and among MPAs. However, little is known about regional spatial patterns of marine ecological connectivity, particularly adult movement. We developed a method to assess and design MPA networks that maximize inferred connectivity within habitat types for adult movement when ecological data are limited. We used the Northern Shelf Bioregion in British Columbia, Canada, to explore two different approaches: (1) evaluating sites important for inferred regional connectivity (termed hotspots) and (2) assessing MPA network configurations based on their overlap with connectivity hotspots and interconnectedness between MPAs. To assess inferred connectivity via adult movement, we used two different threshold distances (15 and 50 km) to capture moderate home ranges, which are most appropriate to consider in MPA design. We applied graph theory to assess inferred connectivity within 16 habitat and depth categories (proxies for distinct ecological communities), and used novel multiplex network methodologies to perform an aggregated assessment of inferred connectivity. We evaluated inferred regional connectivity hotspots based on betweenness and eigenvector centrality metrics, finding that the existing MPA network overlapped a moderate proportion of these regional hotspots and identified key areas to be considered as candidate MPAs. Network density among existing MPAs was low within the individual habitat networks, as well as the multiplex. This work informs an ongoing MPA planning process, and approaches for incorporating connectivity into MPA design when data are limited, with lessons for other contexts.

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