Climate change promotes species loss and uneven modification of richness patterns in the avifauna associated to Neotropical seasonally dry forests

Insights for protection of high species richness areas for the conservation of Mesoamerican endemic birds

“…Firstly, according to the prioritization analyses (whether due to rarity or species richness), PA area needs to be increased to include the identified priority areas to accurately include their biodiversity. This is consistent with previous studies that have highlighted the need for additional PAs to avoid in major losses of species diversity throughout the region in the long term (e.g., De Albuquerque et al, 2015; Prieto‐Torres, Lira‐Noriega, & Navarro‐Sigüenza, 2020; Prieto‐Torres, Navarro‐Sigüenza, Santiago‐Alarcón, & Rojas‐Soto, 2016; Prieto‐Torres et al., 2018; Sánchez‐Azofeifa, Powers, Fernandes, & Quesada, 2013). Secondly, the moist forests are the least protected biome across the region and had the highest deforestation rate in recent decades (Defourny et al, 2016; Hansen et al., 2013).…”

“…This information is indispensable to determine spatial priorities in the region and guide effective conservation policies. Given the large information gaps regarding the biodiversity of the region, future studies should update spatial priorities of the Mesoamerican region as new information is generated, including studies contemplating climate change scenarios (see Prieto‐Torres et al., 2016, 2020), which is an important limitation in our study.…”

“…Under future climates scenarios, species will be pushed towards higher elevations in order to track their climatic niches, which could produce local extinctions or drastic modifications in the distribution of habitat specialists and, consequently, a reassortment of biotic assemblages within the current PA network (e.g., Golicher, Cayuela, & Newton, 2012; Prieto‐Torres et al., 2016,2020). In fact, previous studies suggest that climate‐induced range contractions for species could have similar effects on taxa considered Threatened, Data Deficient and Least Concern (e.g., Hidasi‐Neto et al., 2019; Prieto‐Torres et al., 2020). Thus, adding new areas to preserve both current and future potential species ranges could represent a less costly and more effective strategy for guiding conservation decision‐making to maximizing the long‐term protection of biota (Hannah et al., 2007; Prieto‐Torres et al., 2016; Triviño et al., 2018).…”

“…Approaches evaluating conservation status for species in human‐modified landscapes, in both spatial and temporal terms, are essential for shedding light on the ecological mechanisms underlying the persistence of wild biodiversity in those areas (Donovan & Strong, 2003; Nori et al, 2013) and the critical roles that species play in local ecosystems (Gardner et al., 2009). The identification of conservation areas for birds that are endemic, threatened or both, as well as areas with a high concentration of species in general (i.e., high species richness), coupled with the possible effects of future climate change, would maximize the performance of the current PA network (De Albuquerque et al., 2015; Hannah et al., 2007; Prieto‐Torres et al., 2018, 2020; Triviño et al., 2018).…”

Temporal trends in opportunistic citizen science reports across multiple taxa

“…The wide availability and cost-effectiveness of opportunistic data, and the public engagement benefits they can provide, leads to stakeholder interest from governmental agencies, non-governmental organisations, universities and research institutes. For instance, governmental agency staff may use the data for infrastructure development planning or red-listing of species (Maes et al 2015 ), and researchers may be interested in distributional range shifts (Prieto-Torres et al 2020 ).…”