The relative importance of COVID-19 pandemic impacts on biodiversity conservation globally.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an enormous impact on almost all aspects of human society and endeavor; the natural world and its conservation have not been spared. Through a process of expert consultation, we identified and categorized, into 19 themes and 70 subthemes, the ways in which biodiversity and its conservation have been or could be affected by the pandemic globally. Nearly 60% of the effects have been broadly negative. Subsequently, we created a compendium of all themes and subthemes, each with explanatory text, and in August 2020 a diverse group of experienced conservationists with expertise from across sectors and geographies assessed each subtheme for its likely impact on biodiversity conservation globally. The 9 subthemes ranked highest all have a negative impact. These were, in rank order, governments sidelining the environment during their economic recovery, reduced wildlife-based tourism income, increased habitat destruction, reduced government funding, increased plastic and other solid waste pollution, weakening of nature-friendly regulations and their enforcement, increased illegal harvest of wild animals, reduced philanthropy, and threats to survival of conservation organizations. In combination, these impacts present a worrying future of increased threats to biodiversity conservation but reduced capacity to counter them. The highest ranking positive impact, at 10, was the beneficial impact of wildlife-trade restrictions. More optimistically, among impacts ranked 11-20, 6 were positive and 4 were negative. We hope our assessment will draw attention to the impacts of the pandemic and, thus, improve the conservation community's ability to respond to such threats in the future.

La pandemia de COVID-19 ha tenido un impacto enorme sobre casi todos los aspectos de la sociedad humana y sus proyectos; el mundo natural y su conservación no han sido la excepción. Por medio de un proceso de consultas a expertos, identificamos y categorizamos en 19 temas y 70 subtemas las maneras en las que la biodiversidad y su conservación han sido o podrían ser afectadas mundialmente por la pandemia. Casi el 60% de los efectos han sido claramente negativos. Posteriormente, creamos un compendio de todos los temas y subtemas, cada uno con textos explicativos, para que en agosto de 2020 un grupo diverso de conservacionistas experimentados con conocimiento de todos los sectores y geografías evaluara cada subtema de acuerdo con su probabilidad de impactar sobre la conservación de la biodiversidad en todo el mundo. Los nueve subtemas con la clasificación más alta tienen un impacto negativo. Estos temas son, en orden de clasificación: los gobiernos dejando de lado al ambiente durante su recuperación económica, reducción de los ingresos basados en el turismo de fauna, incremento en la destrucción de hábitat, financiamiento reducido del gobierno, aumento de la contaminación por plásticos y otros desechos sólidos, debilitamiento de las regulaciones en pro de la naturaleza y su aplicación, incremento en la captura ilegal de animales, disminución de la filantropía y amenazas para la supervivencia de las organizaciones de conservación. La combinación de estos impactos representa un futuro preocupante lleno de amenazas para la conservación de la biodiversidad y una capacidad reducida para contrarrestarlas. El impacto positivo con la clasificación más alta, el 10, fue el impacto benéfico de las restricciones en el mercado de fauna. De manera más optimista, entre los impactos clasificados de los lugares del 11 al 20, seis fueron positivos y cuatro fueron negativos. Esperamos que nuestra evaluación enfoque la atención hacia los impactos de la pandemia y así mejore la habilidad de la comunidad conservacionista para responder a tales amenazas en el futuro. Importancia Relativa de los Impactos de la Pandemia de COVID-19 sobre la Conservación Mundial de la Biodiversidad.

Habitat patches providing south-north connectivity are under-protected in a fragmented landscape.

As species' ranges shift to track climate change, conservationists increasingly recognize the need to consider connectivity when designating protected areas (PAs). In fragmented landscapes, some habitat patches are more important than others in maintaining connectivity, and methods are needed for their identification. Here, using the Condatis methodology, we model range expansion through an adaptation of circuit theory. Specifically, we map 'flow' through 16 conservation priority habitat networks in England, quantifying how patches contribute to functional South-North connectivity. We also explore how much additional connectivity could be protected via a connectivity-led protection procedure. We find high-flow patches are often left out of existing PAs; across 12 of 16 habitat networks, connectivity protection falls short of area protection by 13.6% on average. We conclude that the legacy of past protection decisions has left habitat-specialist species vulnerable to climate change. This situation may be mirrored in many countries which have similar habitat protection principles. Addressing this requires specific planning tools that can account for the directions species may shift. Our connectivity-led reserve selection procedure efficiently identifies additional PAs that prioritize connectivity, protecting a median of 40.9% more connectivity in these landscapes with just a 10% increase in area.

Large extents of intensive land use limit community reorganization during climate warming.

Climate change is increasingly altering the composition of ecological communities, in combination with other environmental pressures such as high-intensity land use. Pressures are expected to interact in their effects, but the extent to which intensive human land use constrains community responses to climate change is currently unclear. A generic indicator of climate change impact, the community temperature index (CTI), has previously been used to suggest that both bird and butterflies are successfully 'tracking' climate change. Here, we assessed community changes at over 600 English bird or butterfly monitoring sites over three decades and tested how the surrounding land has influenced these changes. We partitioned community changes into warm- and cold-associated assemblages and found that English bird communities have not reorganized successfully in response to climate change. CTI increases for birds are primarily attributable to the loss of cold-associated species, whilst for butterflies, warm-associated species have tended to increase. Importantly, the area of intensively managed land use around monitoring sites appears to influence these community changes, with large extents of intensively managed land limiting 'adaptive' community reorganization in response to climate change. Specifically, high-intensity land use appears to exacerbate declines in cold-adapted bird and butterfly species, and prevent increases in warm-associated birds. This has broad implications for managing landscapes to promote climate change adaptation.

Influences of extreme weather, climate and pesticide use on invertebrates in cereal fields over 42 years.

Cereal fields are central to balancing food production and environmental health in the face of climate change. Within them, invertebrates provide key ecosystem services. Using 42 years of monitoring data collected in southern England, we investigated the sensitivity and resilience of invertebrates in cereal fields to extreme weather events and examined the effect of long-term changes in temperature, rainfall and pesticide use on invertebrate abundance. Of the 26 invertebrate groups examined, eleven proved sensitive to extreme weather events. Average abundance increased in hot/dry years and decreased in cold/wet years for Araneae, Cicadellidae, adult Heteroptera, Thysanoptera, Braconidae, Enicmus and Lathridiidae. The average abundance of Delphacidae, Cryptophagidae and Mycetophilidae increased in both hot/dry and cold/wet years relative to other years. The abundance of all 10 groups usually returned to their long-term trend within a year after the extreme event. For five of them, sensitivity to cold/wet events was lowest (translating into higher abundances) at locations with a westerly aspect. Some long-term trends in invertebrate abundance correlated with temperature and rainfall, indicating that climate change may affect them. However, pesticide use was more important in explaining the trends, suggesting that reduced pesticide use would mitigate the effects of climate change.

Managing protected areas under climate change: challenges and priorities.

The implementation of adaptation actions in local conservation management is a new and complex task with multiple facets, influenced by factors differing from site to site. A transdisciplinary perspective is therefore required to identify and implement effective solutions. To address this, the International Conference on Managing Protected Areas under Climate Change brought together international scientists, conservation managers, and decision-makers to discuss current experiences with local adaptation of conservation management. This paper summarizes the main issues for implementing adaptation that emerged from the conference. These include a series of conclusions and recommendations on monitoring, sensitivity assessment, current and future management practices, and legal and policy aspects. A range of spatial and temporal scales must be considered in the implementation of climate-adapted management. The adaptation process must be area-specific and consider the ecosystem and the social and economic conditions within and beyond protected area boundaries. However, a strategic overview is also needed: management at each site should be informed by conservation priorities and likely impacts of climate change at regional or even wider scales. Acting across these levels will be a long and continuous process, requiring coordination with actors outside the "traditional" conservation sector. To achieve this, a range of research, communication, and policy/legal actions is required. We identify a series of important actions that need to be taken at different scales to enable managers of protected sites to adapt successfully to a changing climate.

Protected areas facilitate species' range expansions.

The benefits of protected areas (PAs) for biodiversity have been questioned in the context of climate change because PAs are static, whereas the distributions of species are dynamic. Current PAs may, however, continue to be important if they provide suitable locations for species to colonize at their leading-edge range boundaries, thereby enabling spread into new regions. Here, we present an empirical assessment of the role of PAs as targets for colonization during recent range expansions. Records from intensive surveys revealed that seven bird and butterfly species have colonized PAs 4.2 (median) times more frequently than expected from the availability of PAs in the landscapes colonized. Records of an additional 256 invertebrate species with less-intensive surveys supported these findings and showed that 98% of species are disproportionately associated with PAs in newly colonized parts of their ranges. Although colonizing species favor PAs in general, species vary greatly in their reliance on PAs, reflecting differences in the dependence of individual species on particular habitats and other conditions that are available only in PAs. These findings highlight the importance of current PAs for facilitating range expansions and show that a small subset of the landscape receives a high proportion of colonizations by range-expanding species.