Areas of global importance for terrestrial biodiversity, carbon, and water

Abstract

paragraph 64 65To meet the ambitious objectives of biodiversity and climate conventions, countries and the 66 international community require clarity on how these objectives can be operationalized spatially, 67and multiple targets be pursued concurrently 1 . To support governments and political conventions, 68 spatial guidance is needed to identify which areas should be managed for conservation to generate 69 the greatest synergies between biodiversity and nature's contribution to people (NCP). Here we 70 present results from a joint optimization that maximizes improvements in species conservation 71 status, carbon retention and water provisioning and rank terrestrial conservation priorities globally. 72We found that, selecting the top-ranked 30% (respectively 50%) of areas would conserve 62.4% 73 (86.8%) of the estimated total carbon stock and 67.8% (90.7%) of all clean water provisioning, in 74 addition to improving the conservation status for 69.7% (83.8%) of all species considered. If 75 priority was given to biodiversity only, managing 30% of optimally located land area for 76 conservation may be sufficient to improve the conservation status of 86.3% of plant and vertebrate 77 species on Earth. Our results provide a global baseline on where land could be managed for 78conservation. We discuss how such a spatial prioritisation framework can support the 79 implementation of the biodiversity and climate conventions. 80 81 82(SDGs), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the CBD 97 emphasize that habitat conservation and restoration should contribute simultaneously to 98 biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation 4 . Recent analyses of conservation 99priorities for biodiversity and carbon have spatially overlaid areas of importance for both assets, 100effectively treating the two goals as to be pursued separately (e.g. 6,9 ). However, multi-criteria 101 spatial optimization approaches applied to conservation and restoration prioritisation have shown 102 that carbon sequestration could be doubled, and the number of extinctions prevented tripled, if 103 priority areas were jointly identified rather than independently 10,11 . Yet, no comparable 104 optimization analyses exist at a global scale. 105A number of recent studies have attempted to map spatial conservation priorities on land 12 , 106relying on spatial conservation prioritisation (SCP) methods . However, these approaches are 107 limited, in that: they (i) are limited by geographic extent 22 or focus on only a subset of global 108 biodiversity, notably ignoring either reptiles or plant species, which show considerable variation 109 in areas of importance compared to other taxa 18,19 ; (ii) focus on species representation only, rather 110 than reducing extinction risk, as per international biodiversity targets, and often ignore other 111 dimensions of biodiversity, e.g. evolutionary distinctiveness 20,21 ; (iii) do not investigate the extent 112 to which synergies between biodiversity and NCPs, such as carbon seq...

Toward Unifying Global Hotspots of Wild and Domesticated Biodiversity

“…Biogeographers and conservation biologists have long been interested in identifying and characterizing geographic regions containing a higher concentration of biodiversity and derived natural resources than surrounding areas, ranging from within- and among-species diversity through to ecosystem services [ 1 , 2 , 3 ], at different spatial, temporal and taxonomic scales [ 4 ]. Centres (also known as hotspots) and peripheries (coldspots) of plant diversity have been shown to be unevenly distributed and to play a fundamental role in shaping ecosystems and delivering associated benefits to humans and other species [ 5 , 6 ].…”

“…However, biodiversity hotspots often fail to capture the multi-faceted nature of biodiversity. For example, hotspot designations may consider a narrow range of organisms [ 19 ], and miss non-terrestrial habitats [ 3 ], phylogenetic and functional diversity (but see [ 20 ]). The seminal definition of a biodiversity hotspot, which was based solely on plants from tropical forests, highlights this shortcoming [ 21 ].…”

Identification of areas of very high biodiversity value to achieve the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 key commitments

“…Spatial conservation prioritization relies on the quality of species distribution data ( Wiersma & Sleep, 2016 ). Studies typically opt to limit planning exercises to the best available species data set (e.g., Kukkala et al, 2016 ; D’Amen et al, 2013 ); however, drawing conclusions on data-rich taxa likely limits the application of systematic conservation planning at a continental level that consider species across all taxonomic groups (see Jung et al., 2020 for a comprehensive global analysis). Our analysis, while coarse, does explore several taxonomic groups (amphibians, reptiles, fish, mammals, invertebrates, plants), thus providing a national-level perspective on protecting many levels of biodiversity.…”

Identification of areas of very high biodiversity value to achieve the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 key commitments

“…Spatial conservation prioritization relies on the quality of species distribution data (Wiersma and Sleep, 2016). Studies typically opt to limit planning exercises to the best available species data set (e.g., Kukkala et al 2016; D’Amen M et al 2013); however, drawing conclusions on data-rich taxa likely limits the application of systematic conservation planning at a continental level that consider species across all taxonomic groups (see Jung et. 2020 for a comprehensive global analysis).…”