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Summary1. Conservation planning decisions are constrained by three important factors: budgets are limited, important areas for biodiversity compete for space with other uses, and climate-and land-use changes are affecting the distribution of life thus compounding existing threats to biodiversity. Decisions about locating and allocating resources for conservation in such complex and dynamic world are far from trivial, with apparently optimal decisions in the present being potential suboptimal in the future. 2. We propose a methodological framework for the dynamic spatial prioritization of conservation areas that optimizes long-term conservation goals under climate change. This approach involves a sequential scheduling of conservation areas designation, followed by the release of some areas when they stop contributing to the specified long-term conservation goals. The usefulness of the proposed approach is demonstrated with a case study involving ten species in the Iberian Peninsula under severe scenarios of climate change, but the framework could be applied more broadly. 3. Species persistence under climate change is enhanced by the dynamic spatial prioritization strategy that assumes area release. With such strategy, the long-term persistence of species is consistently higher than expected with no release of redundant areas, particularly when the budgets to acquire and manage conservation areas are small. When budgets are small, longterm persistence of species might only be achieved when the release of previously selected areas is considered alongside the selection of new areas. 4. Synthesis and applications. Given that conservation budgets are typically small, conservation strategies involving the release of some underperforming areas might be required to achieve long-term persistence of species. This should be the case when climate change forces species to move out of current protected areas with other areas becoming important to meet conservation objectives. Implementing such dynamic prioritization approach would require a paradigm shift in conservation planning because conservation areas, once selected, are rarely released. Dynamic selection of areas also involves risks that should be considered in a case-by-case situation.

Summary The notion that conservation areas are static geographical units for biodiversity conservation should be revised when planning for climate‐change adaptation. Since species are expected to respond to climate change by shifting their distributions, conservation areas can lose the very same species that justified their designation. Methods exist to take into account the potential effects of climate on spatial priorities for conservation. One of such methods involves the identification of time‐ordered linkages between conservation areas (hereafter termed climate‐change corridors), thus enabling species tracking their suitable changing climates. We critically review and synthesise existing quantitative approaches for spatial conservation planning under climate change. We extend these approaches focusing on the identification of climate‐change corridors, using three alternative models that vary on the objective function (minimum cost or maximum benefit sought) and on the nature of conservation targets (area‐based or persistence probabilities). The three models for establishing climate‐change corridors are illustrated with a case study involving two species distributed across the Iberian Peninsula. The species were modelled in relation to climate‐change scenarios using ensembles of bioclimatic models and theoretical dispersal kernels. The corridors obtained are compared for their location, the temporal sequence of priorities, and the effectiveness with which solutions attain persistence and cost objectives. By clearly framing the climate‐change corridors problem as three alternative models and providing the corresponding mathematical descriptions and solving tools, we offer planners a wide spectrum of models that can be easily adapted to a variety of conservation goals and constraints.

Flexibility, efficiency and accountability are considered key attributes of good reserve selection methods. Flexibility, the ability to incorporate all the diversity of considerations, concerns and information that typically impinge on real conservation problems, is fundamental if the particulars of any given situation are to be addressed and land use conflicts are to be effectively resolved. High efficiency, the representation of the maximum diversity of the relevant features (e.g. species) at the minimum cost, is important because reserves will commonly be in direct competition with other forms of land use. Accountability means that the solutions are obtained in a transparent way. allowing others to understand why and how the result was arrived at. Because of the robustness of the general integer linear model, a remarkably rich variety of problems concerning the management and efficient use of scarce resources can be represented as problems of this type. This study starts by analysing a simple representation problem and then develops more general problems that can be applied to a variety of conservation planning exercises. It is illustrated how high flexibility can be attained, while simultaneously addressing efficiency and accountability, by modelling reserve selection questions as integer linear problems.

In recent years, the analysis of interaction networks has grown popular as a framework to explore ecological processes and the relationships between community structure and its functioning. The field has rapidly grown from its infancy to a vibrant youth, as reflected in the variety and quality of the discussions held at the first international symposium on Ecological Networks in Coimbra-Portugal (23-25 October 2013). The meeting gathered 170 scientists from 22 countries, who presented data from a broad geographical range, and covering all stages of network analyses, from sampling strategies to effective ways of communicating results, presenting new analytical tools, incorporation of temporal and spatial dynamics, new applications and visualization tools.1 During the meeting it became evident that while many of the caveats diagnosed in early network studies are successfully being tackled, new challenges arise, attesting to the health of the discipline.