Choice of prioritization method impacts recommendations for climate‐informed bird conservation in the United States

Abstract

Climate‐informed spatial planning is urgently needed to guide initiatives aimed at both conserving biodiversity as a whole (e.g. protection of 30% of lands and waters by 2030) and recovering North American avifauna in particular. Various methods for prioritizing conservation areas exist, yet alternative methods may direct managers to different lands for protection, and thus varying recommendations for meeting area‐based targets. Here, we used bird species distribution models and landcover projections to systematically evaluate two widely used methods for prioritizing areas most likely to facilitate the persistence of multiple species under climate change: 1) in situ macrorefugia, identified as areas of high predicted species retention; and 2) complementarity‐based optimizations, identified using the Zonation conservation planning software. For 17 biogeographical groups in the continental United States, we compared priority areas for bird conservation derived from these two alternatives with respect to their spatial distributions and consensus (i.e. overlap), expected conservation outcomes (e.g. species and functional diversity), predicted climate change exposure, habitat characteristics, landscape configurations and degree of formal protection. Spatial distributions of priority areas differed by biogeographical group and method, with 40.5% consensus on average across groups. Consensus was extensive within mountainous and coastal regions, and limited at high latitudes (e.g. Alaska) and in flat, interior regions (e.g. grasslands). As expected, complementarity‐based optimizations more efficiently represented species than retention‐based in situ macrorefugia, especially for forest groups, and had greater overall biodiversity value and better habitat condition. Conversely, in situ macrorefugia encompassed higher elevations and larger contiguous patches and were expected to experience less winter‐season warming. Formal protection averaged < 50% across biogeographical groups, regardless of prioritization method. Our findings illustrate the value of complementarity‐based optimizations for bird conservation under climate change. More broadly, comparing approaches for prioritizing areas for long‐term species persistence can reveal critical trade‐offs in recommendations for climate‐informed protected area planning.

Where, who, and what counts under area-based conservation targets: A framework for identifying opportunities that benefit biodiversity, climate mitigation, and human communities

“…Together, these BC priorities, through actions to maintain, (Belote et al, 2021;Carroll et al, 2017;Karimi et al, 2017;Taylor et al, 2022;Whitehead et al, 2014). In addition, we used commonly applied and recommended thresholds for the input values we used (see methods).…”

“…We represented each species by its predicted suitability above a species-specific threshold (as per Taylor et al, 2022) and included projections from both breeding and nonbreeding seasons and all time periods under an ensemble of 15 GCMs as input features in Zonation. Following prior work to develop climate-informed bird prioritizations (e.g., Grand et al, 2019;Taylor et al, 2022), we used the Core Area Zonation algorithm to rank the landscape based on current and future climate suitability for birds, habitat availability, and landscape condition. For all ecosystems we used the Global Human Modification Index (Theobald et al, 2020) to represent degradation due to human activities.…”

“…Data DescriptionWe identified Climate Strongholds and Vulnerable Climate Strongholds for birds in 17 biogeographical groups (as perTaylor et al, 2022) using an optimization approach implemented with Zonation conservation planning software(Moilanen 2007). Birds were represented by previously published species distribution models developed by at a 1-km resolution across North America for a baseline period and for three future time periods (2020s, 2050s, and 2080s) under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5.…”

“…For a list of species associated with each biogeographical group, please see S1 Data. The 17 biogeographical groups were based on habitat affiliations for 557 bird species (see S1 Data) and NCS focus areas as per Fargione et al, 2018;Taylor et al, 2022) for seven ecosystems (forests, grasslands and rangelands, aridlands, interior wetlands, coastal wetlands, tundra, and urban and suburban systems) across four major regions of the continental US (eastern, central, western, and Alaska).For each biogeographical region (e.g. eastern forests), we calculated the spatial extent for each time period based on both current and future landcover projections that incorporated climate change, sea level rise, and human population growth (Alaska Center for Conservation Science, 2020; NOAA Office for Coastal Management, 2019; Rehfeldt et al, 2012; T. Sohl et al, 2016; T. L. Sohl, 2014; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2017; U.S.…”

Cap. 8. Ecosistemas, servicios ecosistémicos y biodiversidad. En: La Quinta Evaluación Nacional del Clima.

“…La gestión de la conectividad puede mejorar la resiliencia climática de las especies, sobre todo las migratorias y las de gran distribución 179 . Las prioridades incluyen la conexión de refugios climáticos y zonas de gran diversidad 123,180 y los tipos de hábitat actuales y futuros. 181 .…”