Connecting protected areas in the Iberian peninsula to facilitate climate change tracking

Abstract

Summary Protected areas (PAs) are intended to preserve natural places, aiming to sustain ecosystem functionality and preserve biodiversity. However, PAs are spatially static, while major threats to biodiversity, such as climate and land-use change, are dynamic. The climatic conditions represented in a PA could vanish in the future and appear in other places more or less far away from the PA; these places could be considered as recipient areas potentially suited to receive propagules from the source PAs, which tend to lose the climatic conditions that motivated their protection. This study estimates the current and future climatic representativeness of mainland Iberian national parks by identifying future areas with a similar climate to those existing now in the parks and taking into account the degree of anthropogenic alteration and protection. We identify a network of ecological corridors connecting Iberian national parks with their recipient areas, as well as discriminating those most conflicting areas that impede network connectivity due to their degree of land-use transformation. Our results identify important areas for maintaining the climatic representativeness of Iberian national parks in the future, showing a substantial reduction in the climatic representativeness of the Iberian national parks. Although most of the recipient areas now have forest and semi-natural land uses and more than half of their whole area has protected status, current land uses in the Iberian Peninsula severely obstruct the corridor network connecting the parks and recipient areas.

Protected areas not likely to serve as steppingstones for species undergoing climate‐induced range shifts

“…In an era of rapid climate change, explicit attention to climate connectivity will improve our ability to manage for climate‐induced species movement among protected areas (Mingarro & Lobo, 2021). In this study, we underscore that dispersal limitations, human land uses, exposure to unsuitable climate, and novel/disappearing climates will likely impede climate‐induced species movement (e.g., Figure 6), leading to climate connectivity failure.…”

“…In an era of rapid climate change, explicit attention to climate connectivity will improve our ability to manage for climate-induced species movement among protected areas (Mingarro & Lobo, 2021).…”

The Potential Role of Drove Roads as Connecting Corridors for Birds between Natura 2000 Sites

“…Nature conservation in densely populated areas represents a challenge whose success relies on the protection of core conservation areas interconnected either by ecological corridors or by landscapes that keep at least a relevant fraction of biodiversity [1]. Climate changes make the conservation of interconnected areas even more relevant since many species will have to shift their occupation areas to follow the displacement of their optima [2][3][4]. The European Union is a paradigmatic case in this sense due to its population density, long history of human occupation and extent of cultural landscapes dependent for centuries on human activities [5,6].…”