Vulnerability of cloud forest reserves in Mexico to climate change 39 40 41 Tropical montane cloud forests are among the most vulnerable terrestrial ecosystems to climate 42 change 1-3 owing to their restricted climatic requirements and their narrow and fragmented 43 distribution 4 . Although 12% of Mexican cloud forest is protected, it is not known whether 44 reserves will ensure the persistence of the ecosystem and its endemic species under climate 45 change. Here, we show that 68% of Mexico's cloud forest could vanish by 2080 because of 46 climate change, and more than 90% of currently protected cloud forest will not be climatically 47
1. Threats to biodiversity and the integrity of ecological systems are escalating globally, both within and outside of protected areas. Decision makers have inadequate resources to manage all threats and typically lack information on the likely outcomes and cost-effectiveness of possible management strategies. Priority Threat Management (PTM) is an emerging approach designed to address this challenge, by defining and appraising cost-effective strategies for mitigating threats to biodiversity across regions. The scientific and practical impacts of PTM are increasing, with a growing number of case study applications across the globe.2. Here, we provide guidance and resource material for conducting the PTM process based on our experience delivering six large-scale projects across Australia and Canada. Our handbook describes the four stages of PTM: scoping and planning; defining and collecting key elements; analysing the cost-effectiveness of strategies; and communicating and integrating recommendations. We summarise critical tips, strengths, and limitations and scope for possible enhancements of the approach. Priority Threat Management harnesses scientific and expert-derived informationto prioritise management strategies based on their benefit to biodiversity, management costs and feasibility. The approach involves collaboration with key experts and stakeholders in a region to improve knowledge sharing and conservation support. The PTM approach identifies sets of regional level strategies that together provide the greatest benefits for multiple species under a limited budget, which can be used to inform existing processes for decision-making. 4. The PTM approach applies some generalisations in management strategies and resolution, in order to address complex challenges. Further developments of the approach include testing in a greater range of socioecological systems with adaptations that cater for multiobjective decisions. 482 | Journal of Applied Ecology CARWARDINE Et Al.5. Synthesis and applications. Priority Threat Management is a decision science approach that brings people together to define and prioritise strategies for managing threats to biodiversity across broad regions. It delivers a prospectus for investment in the biodiversity of a region that is transparent, repeatable, participatory, and based on the best available information. Our handbook provides the necessary guidance and resources for expanding the Priority Threat Management approach to new locations, contexts, and challenges. K E Y W O R D S biodiversity conservation, cost-effectiveness analysis, expert elicitation, extinction, Prioritising Threat Management, return on investment, structured decision-making, threatened species | 483 Journal of Applied Ecology CARWARDINE Et Al.
Climate change is a major threat to global biodiversity, and its impacts can act synergistically to heighten the severity of other threats. Most research on projecting species range shifts under climate change has not been translated to informing priority management strategies on the ground. We develop a prioritization framework to assess strategies for managing threats to biodiversity under climate change and apply it to the management of invasive animal species across one-sixth of the Australian continent, the Lake Eyre Basin. We collected information from key stakeholders and experts on the impacts of invasive animals on 148 of the region's most threatened species and 11 potential strategies. Assisted by models of current distributions of threatened species and their projected distributions, experts estimated the cost, feasibility, and potential benefits of each strategy for improving the persistence of threatened species with and without climate change. We discover that the relative cost-effectiveness of invasive animal control strategies is robust to climate change, with the management of feral pigs being the highest priority for conserving threatened species overall. Complementary sets of strategies to protect as many threatened species as possible under limited budgets change when climate change is considered, with additional strategies required to avoid impending extinctions from the region. Overall, we find that the ranking of strategies by cost-effectiveness was relatively unaffected by including climate change into decision-making, even though the benefits of the strategies were lower. Future climate conditions and impacts on range shifts become most important to consider when designing comprehensive management plans for the control of invasive animals under limited budgets to maximize the number of threatened species that can be protected.
Aim To quantify the consequences of major threats to biodiversity, such as climate and land-use change, it is important to use explicit measures of species persistence, such as extinction risk. The extinction risk of metapopulations can be approximated through simple models, providing a regional snapshot of the extinction probability of a species. We evaluated the extinction risk of three species under different climate change scenarios in three different regions of the Mexican cloud forest, a highly fragmented habitat that is particularly vulnerable to climate change. Location Cloud forests in Mexico.Methods Using Maxent, we estimated the potential distribution of cloud forest for three different time horizons (2030, 2050 and 2080) and their overlap with protected areas. Then, we calculated the extinction risk of three contrasting vertebrate species for two scenarios: (1) climate change only (all suitable areas of cloud forest through time) and (2) climate and land-use change (only suitable areas within a currently protected area), using an explicit patch-occupancy approximation model and calculating the joint probability of all populations becoming extinct when the number of remaining patches was less than five. ResultsOur results show that the extent of environmentally suitable areas for cloud forest in Mexico will sharply decline in the next 70 years. We discovered that if all habitat outside protected areas is transformed, then only species with small area requirements are likely to persist. With habitat loss through climate change only, high dispersal rates are sufficient for persistence, but this requires protection of all remaining cloud forest areas.Main conclusions Even if high dispersal rates mitigate the extinction risk of species due to climate change, the synergistic impacts of changing climate and land use further threaten the persistence of species with higher area requirements. Our approach for assessing the impacts of threats on biodiversity is particularly useful when there is little time or data for detailed population viability analyses.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.