Strategic Conservation of Global Vertebrates in Response to Climate Change

Climate change is causing species’ ranges to shift, many at unprecedented rates, all across the planet. This poses a challenge for planning and management of biodiversity conservation through area-based conservation, as conserved areas are fixed in place. However, nearly a decade of research shows that strategic planning for new conserved areas can help compensate for species moving across conserved area boundaries and improve representation of biodiversity in conserved areas even as species’ ranges shift in response to climate change. We produced species distribution models of both present and future ranges for over 17,000 vertebrate species under multiple model methods and climate scenarios. Through a conservation planning algorithm we identified priority areas for providing continued representation for vertebrate species as climate changes. Results show that strategic planning for conserved areas to achieve 30% or greater land area target offers area-efficient gains in the representation of vertebrate species under climate change. The mean proportion of species’ future ranges represented increases from 15.2-26.7% in existing conserved areas to 36.8-65.9% at a 30% target and 46.1-77.6% at a 50% target. This prioritization exercise provides a baseline assessment of globally important areas for continued vertebrate conservation under climate change. It also provides a roadmap for such prioritization at a more localized scale, as well as alongside ecosystem services such as carbon or freshwater provisioning, to inform global conservation action.