Towards climate-smart, three-dimensional protected areas for biodiversity conservation in the high seas

4D marine conservation networks: Combining 3D prioritization of present and future biodiversity with climatic refugia

“…The interaction of rapid warming and the invasion of thermophilic species have already severely transformed marine ecosystems along the easternmost Mediterranean coasts (Bevilacqua et al, 2021), leading scientists to question the capacity of protected areas to conserve native biodiversity and to suggest the need to shift from protecting native species to rather protecting ecological functions (Katsanevakis et al, 2020). Hence, it is not unexpected that the easternmost parts of the Mediterranean (Brito-Morales et al, 2022), paving the path for a new era of climate-smart conservation initiatives. Similarly, the need to consider vertical connectivity, along with current and future biodiversity patterns across the seascape, has been widely acknowledged as a key conservation challenge.…”

“…Still, suggesting that the latter is climatically more stable could be an artifact, as biological, biochemical, and oceanographic processes could degrade at much higher rates than in the first case. Thus areas where both biological and climatic criteria predict climatic stability may be perceived as low regret priority areas, where the primary focus should be given when designing a climate‐smart network (Brito‐Morales et al, 2022; Doxa et al, 2022).…”

“…The inclusion of climatic resilience into systematic conservation planning of marine ecosystems has been recently applied (Brito‐Morales et al, 2022), paving the path for a new era of climate‐smart conservation initiatives. Similarly, the need to consider vertical connectivity, along with current and future biodiversity patterns across the seascape, has been widely acknowledged as a key conservation challenge.…”

Priority areas to protect mangroves and maximise ecosystem services

“…To minimise these con icts, conservation planning generally avoids areas of intense human activity, minimising the opportunity cost 8 . Thus, protected areas are often established in places that avoid high human populations, valuable industries, rich agricultural land, and productive shing grounds [9][10][11]49 . In selecting areas for protection by minimising the opportunity cost, these planning processes can miss the most valuable biodiversity hotspots and are blind to the ecosystem services provided by these areas.…”

“…Historically, conservation efforts have neglected ecosystem services 8 . Most studies focus on adequately representing biodiversity whilst minimising con ict with economic activities, such as avoiding population centres, arable land, or valuable shing areas [9][10][11] . However, recently there has been increasing interest in designing spatial planning approaches to maintain and enhance ecosystem services [12][13][14] .…”