Developing fine-grained nationwide predictions of valuable forests using biodiversity indicator bird species.

The use of indicator species in forest conservation and management planning can facilitate enhanced preservation of biodiversity from the negative effects of forestry and other uses of land. However, this requires detailed and spatially comprehensive knowledge of the habitat preferences and distributions of selected focal indicator species. Unfortunately, due to limited resources for field surveys, only a small proportion of the occurrences of focal species is usually known. This shortcoming can be circumvented by using modeling techniques to predict the spatial distribution of suitable sites for the target species. Airborne laser scanning (ALS) and other remote sensing (RS) techniques have the potential to provide useful environmental data covering systematically large areas for these purposes. Here, we focused on six bird of prey and woodpecker species known to be good indicators of boreal forest biodiversity values. We used known nest sites of the six indicator species based on nestling ringing records. Thus, the most suitable nesting sites of these species provide important information for biodiversity-friendly forest management and conservation planning. We developed fine-grained, that is, 96 × 96 m grid cell resolution, predictive maps across the whole of Finland of the suitable nesting habitats based on ALS and other RS data and spatial information on the distribution of important forest stands for the six studied biodiversity indicator bird species based on nesting-habitat suitability modeling, that is, the MaxEnt model. Habitat preferences of the study species, as determined by MaxEnt, were in line with the previous knowledge of species-habitat relations. The proportion of suitable habitats of these species in protected areas (PAs) was considerable, but our analysis also revealed many potentially high-quality forest stands outside PAs. However, many of these sites are increasingly threatened by logging because of increased pressures for using forests for bioeconomy and forest industry based on National Forest Strategy. Predicting habitat suitability based on information on the nest sites of indicator species provides a new tool for systematic conservation planning over large areas in boreal forests in Europe, and a corresponding approach would also be feasible and recommendable elsewhere where similar data are available.

Global synthesis of conservation studies reveals the importance of small habitat patches for biodiversity.

Island biogeography theory posits that species richness increases with island size and decreases with isolation. This logic underpins much conservation policy and regulation, with preference given to conserving large, highly connected areas, and relative ambivalence shown toward protecting small, isolated habitat patches. We undertook a global synthesis of the relationship between the conservation value of habitat patches and their size and isolation, based on 31 systematic conservation planning studies across four continents. We found that small, isolated patches are inordinately important for biodiversity conservation. Our results provide a powerful argument for redressing the neglect of small, isolated habitat patches, for urgently prioritizing their restoration, and for avoiding simplistic application of island biogeography theory in conservation decisions.

How decisions about fitting species distribution models affect conservation outcomes.

Species distribution models (SDMs) are increasingly used in conservation and land-use planning as inputs to describe biodiversity patterns. These models can be built in different ways, and decisions about data preparation, selection of predictor variables, model fitting, and evaluation all alter the resulting predictions. Commonly, the true distribution of species is unknown and independent data to verify which SDM variant to choose are lacking. Such model uncertainty is of concern to planners. We analyzed how 11 routine decisions about model complexity, predictors, bias treatment, and setting thresholds for predicted values altered conservation priority patterns across 25 species. Models were created with MaxEnt and run through Zonation to determine the priority rank of sites. Although all SDM variants performed well (area under the curve >0.7), they produced spatially different predictions for species and different conservation priority solutions. Priorities were most strongly altered by decisions to not address bias or to apply binary thresholds to predicted values; on average 40% and 35%, respectively, of all grid cells received an opposite priority ranking. Forcing high model complexity altered conservation solutions less than forcing simplicity (14% and 24% of cells with opposite rank values, respectively). Use of fewer species records to build models or choosing alternative bias treatments had intermediate effects (25% and 23%, respectively). Depending on modeling choices, priority areas overlapped as little as 10-20% with the baseline solution, affecting top and bottom priorities differently. Our results demonstrate the extent of model-based uncertainty and quantify the relative impacts of SDM building decisions. When it is uncertain what the best SDM approach and conservation plan is, solving uncertainty or considering alterative options is most important for those decisions that change plans the most.

Efecto de las Decisiones sobre Modelos Adecuados de Distribución de Especies sobre los Resultados de Conservación Resumen Los modelos de distribución de especies (MDEs) se usan cada vez más en la planeación de la conservación y del uso de suelo como contribuciones para describir los patrones de la biodiversidad. Estos modelos pueden construirse de maneras diferentes y las decisiones sobre la preparación de datos, selección de las variables de pronóstico y la adecuación y evaluación del modelo alteran las predicciones resultantes. Generalmente, la verdadera distribución de las especies se desconoce y se carece de los datos independientes para verificar cuál variante de MDE elegir. Dicha incertidumbre con los modelos es preocupante para los planificadores. Analizamos cómo once decisiones rutinarias sobre el modelo, su complejidad, los predictores, el tratamiento del sesgo y el establecimiento de umbrales para los valores pronosticados alteraron los patrones de prioridades de conservación para 25 especies. Creamos los modelos con MaxEnt y los corrimos en Zonation para determinar el rango de prioridad de los sitios. Aunque todas las variantes de los MDE tuvieron un buen desempeño (área bajo la curva >0.7), todos produjeron predicciones espaciales diferentes para las especies y diferentes soluciones prioritarias de conservación. Las prioridades tuvieron la alteración más fuerte cuando se decidió no considerar el sesgo o aplicar umbrales binarios a los valores pronosticados; en promedio, el 40% y 35%, respectivamente, de todas las celdas de la cuadrícula recibieron una clasificación opuesta de prioridad. Cuando se forzó una complejidad alta para el modelo, se alteraron menos las soluciones de conservación que cuando se forzó la simplicidad (14% y 24% de las celdas con valores opuestos de clasificación, respectivamente). El uso de menos registros de especies para construir modelos o elegir tratamientos alternativos para el sesgo tuvo efectos intermedios (25% y 23%, respectivamente). Según la elección del modelo, las áreas prioritarias se traslaparon mínimamente en 10-20% con la solución de la línea base, afectando a las prioridades de arriba y abajo de maneras diferentes. Nuestros resultados demuestran el alcance de la incertidumbre basada en los modelos y cuantifican el impacto relativo de las decisiones al construir los MDE. Cuando no es seguro cuál es el mejor plan de conservación ni la mejor estrategia de MDE, es de suma importancia solucionar la incertidumbre o considerar soluciones alternativas para aquellas decisiones que más cambian los planes.

Quantifying the impact of vegetation-based metrics on species persistence when choosing offsets for habitat destruction.

Developers are often required by law to offset environmental impacts through targeted conservation actions. Most offset policies specify metrics for calculating offset requirements, usually by assessing vegetation condition. Despite widespread use, there is little evidence to support the effectiveness of vegetation-based metrics for ensuring biodiversity persistence. We compared long-term impacts of biodiversity offsetting based on area only; vegetation condition only; area × habitat suitability; and condition × habitat suitability in development and restoration simulations for the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia. We simulated development and subsequent offsetting through restoration within a virtual landscape, linking simulations to population viability models for 3 species. Habitat gains did not ensure species persistence. No net loss was achieved when performance of offsetting was assessed in terms of amount of habitat restored, but not when outcomes were assessed in terms of persistence. Maintenance of persistence occurred more often when impacts were avoided, giving further support to better enforce the avoidance stage of the mitigation hierarchy. When development affected areas of high habitat quality for species, persistence could not be guaranteed. Therefore, species must be more explicitly accounted for in offsets, rather than just vegetation or habitat alone. Declines due to a failure to account directly for species population dynamics and connectivity overshadowed the benefits delivered by producing large areas of high-quality habitat. Our modeling framework showed that the benefits delivered by offsets are species specific and that simple vegetation-based metrics can give misguided impressions on how well biodiversity offsets achieve no net loss.

Cuantificación del Impacto de las Medidas Basadas en la Vegetación sobre la Persistencia de las Especies cuando se Eligen las Compensaciones por la Destrucción del Hábitat Resumen Con frecuencia se requiere por ley que los desarrolladores compensen los impactos ambientales por medio de acciones de conservación. La mayoría de las políticas de compensación especifican medidas para calcular los requerimientos de cada compensación, generalmente mediante la evaluación de las condiciones de la vegetación. A pesar del uso extenso de estas medidas basadas en la vegetación, existe muy poca evidencia que respalde su efectividad para asegurar la persistencia de la biodiversidad. Comparamos los impactos a largo plazo de las compensaciones de biodiversidad basadas solamente en el área; solamente en la condición de la vegetación; la idoneidad del área x hábitat; y la idoneidad condición x hábitat en las simulaciones de desarrollo y restauración para la Región Hunter de Nueva Gales del Sur, Australia. Simulamos el desarrollo y las compensaciones subsecuentes mediante la restauración dentro de un paisaje virtual, conectando las simulaciones con los modelos de viabilidad poblacional para tres especies. Las ganancias del hábitat no aseguraron la persistencia de las especies. No hubo pérdida neta cuando el desempeño de las compensaciones se evaluó en relación con la persistencia. El mantenimiento de la persistencia ocurrió más seguido cuando se evitaron los impactos, lo que proporciona un mayor respaldo para mejorar la aplicación de la fase de prevención de la jerarquía de mitigación. Cuando el desarrollo afectó a las áreas con una alta calidad de hábitat para las especies, no se pudo garantizar la persistencia. Por lo tanto, las especies deben considerarse más explícitamente en las compensaciones, en lugar de sólo considerar a la vegetación o al hábitat. Las declinaciones causadas por la falta de consideración directa de las dinámicas poblacionales de las especies y de la conectividad opacaron los beneficios producidos por las grandes áreas de hábitat de alta calidad. Nuestro marco de trabajo para el modelado demostró que los beneficios producidos por las compensaciones son específicos para cada especie y que las medidas simples basadas en la vegetación pueden brindar impresiones mal informadas sobre qué tanto influyen las compensaciones de biodiversidad en la no pérdida neta.

Measuring impacts on species with models and metrics of varying ecological and computational complexity.

Approaches to assess the impacts of landscape disturbance scenarios on species range from metrics based on patterns of occurrence or habitat to comprehensive models that explicitly include ecological processes. The choice of metrics and models affects how impacts are interpreted and conservation decisions. We explored the impacts of 3 realistic disturbance scenarios on 4 species with different ecological and taxonomic traits. We used progressively more complex models and metrics to evaluate relative impact and rank of scenarios on the species. Models ranged from species distribution models that relied on implicit assumptions about environmental factors and species presence to highly parameterized spatially explicit population models that explicitly included ecological processes and stochasticity. Metrics performed consistently in ranking different scenarios in order of severity primarily when variation in impact was driven by habitat amount. However, they differed in rank for cases where dispersal dynamics were critical in influencing metapopulation persistence. Impacts of scenarios on species with low dispersal ability were better characterized using models that explicitly captured these processes. Metapopulation capacity provided rank orders that most consistently correlated with those from highly parameterized and data-rich models and incorporated information about dispersal with little additional computational and data cost. Our results highlight the importance of explicitly considering species' ecology, spatial configuration of habitat, and disturbance when choosing indicators of species persistence. We suggest using hybrid approaches that are a mixture of simple and complex models to improve multispecies assessments.

Medición de los Impactos sobre las Especies con Modelos y Medidas de Complejidad Ecológica y Computacional Variante Resumen Las estrategias para evaluar el impacto de los escenarios de perturbación de paisaje sobre la distribución de las especies van desde las medidas basadas en patrones de presencia o hábitat hasta los modelos integrales que incluyen explícitamente a los procesos ecológicos. La elección de medidas y modelos afecta la interpretación de los impactos y las decisiones de conservación. Exploramos los impactos de tres escenarios realistas de perturbación sobre cuatro especies con características ecológicas y taxonómicas diferentes. Usamos progresivamente modelos y medidas más complejas para evaluar el impacto relativo y la clasificación de los escenarios sobre las especies. Los modelos variaron desde aquellos de distribución de especies que dependen de las suposiciones implícitas acerca de los factores ambientales y la presencia de la especie hasta aquellos modelos poblacionales explícitos con una alta parametrización espacial que incluyen los procesos ecológicos y la estocasticidad. Las medidas tuvieron un desempeño uniforme en la clasificación de los diferentes escenarios de acuerdo a la gravedad, principalmente cuando la variación en el impacto fue causada por la cantidad de hábitat presente. Sin embargo, las medidas difirieron en la clasificación para los casos en los que las dinámicas de dispersión fueron significativas en la influencia de la persistencia metapoblacional. Los impactos de los escenarios sobre las especies con una habilidad reducida de dispersión estuvieron mejor caracterizados con el uso de modelos que capturaron explícitamente estos procesos. La capacidad metapoblacional proporcionó categorías de clasificación con la correlación más consistente a aquellas provenientes de los modelos ricos en datos y con una alta parametrización e incorporó información sobre la dispersión con un reducido costo adicional de cómputo y de datos. Nuestros resultados resaltan la importancia de la consideración explícita de la ecología de las especies, la configuración espacial del hábitat y la perturbación cuando se eligen los indicadores de la persistencia de una especie. Sugerimos que se usen estrategias híbridas que mezclen modelos simples y complejos para mejorar las evaluaciones realizadas a múltiples especies.

Guidelines for Using Movement Science to Inform Biodiversity Policy.

Substantial advances have been made in our understanding of the movement of species, including processes such as dispersal and migration. This knowledge has the potential to improve decisions about biodiversity policy and management, but it can be difficult for decision makers to readily access and integrate the growing body of movement science. This is, in part, due to a lack of synthesis of information that is sufficiently contextualized for a policy audience. Here, we identify key species movement concepts, including mechanisms, types, and moderators of movement, and review their relevance to (1) national biodiversity policies and strategies, (2) reserve planning and management, (3) threatened species protection and recovery, (4) impact and risk assessments, and (5) the prioritization of restoration actions. Based on the review, and considering recent developments in movement ecology, we provide a new framework that draws links between aspects of movement knowledge that are likely the most relevant to each biodiversity policy category. Our framework also shows that there is substantial opportunity for collaboration between researchers and government decision makers in the use of movement science to promote positive biodiversity outcomes.

Integrating biological and social values when prioritizing places for biodiversity conservation.

The consideration of information on social values in conjunction with biological data is critical for achieving both socially acceptable and scientifically defensible conservation planning outcomes. However, the influence of social values on spatial conservation priorities has received limited attention and is poorly understood. We present an approach that incorporates quantitative data on social values for conservation and social preferences for development into spatial conservation planning. We undertook a public participation GIS survey to spatially represent social values and development preferences and used species distribution models for 7 threatened fauna species to represent biological values. These spatially explicit data were simultaneously included in the conservation planning software Zonation to examine how conservation priorities changed with the inclusion of social data. Integrating spatially explicit information about social values and development preferences with biological data produced prioritizations that differed spatially from the solution based on only biological data. However, the integrated solutions protected a similar proportion of the species' distributions, indicating that Zonation effectively combined the biological and social data to produce socially feasible conservation solutions of approximately equivalent biological value. We were able to identify areas of the landscape where synergies and conflicts between different value sets are likely to occur. Identification of these synergies and conflicts will allow decision makers to target communication strategies to specific areas and ensure effective community engagement and positive conservation outcomes.

An assessment of the state of conservation planning in Europe.

Expanding and managing current habitat and species protection measures is at the heart of the European biodiversity strategy. A structured approach is needed to gain insights into such issues is systematic conservation planning, which uses techniques from decision theory to identify places and actions that contribute most effectively to policy objectives given a set of constraints. Yet culturally and historically determined European landscapes make the implementation of any conservation plans challenging, requiring an analysis of synergies and trade-offs before implementation. In this work, we review the scientific literature for evidence of previous conservation planning approaches, highlighting recent advances and success stories. We find that the conceptual characteristics of European conservation planning studies likely reduced their potential in contributing to better-informed decisions. We outline pathways towards improving the uptake of decision theory and multi-criteria conservation planning at various scales, particularly highlighting the need for (a) open data and intuitive tools, (b) the integration of biodiversity-focused conservation planning with multiple objectives, (c) accounting of dynamic ecological processes and functions, and (d) better facilitation of entry-points and co-design practices of conservation planning scenarios with stakeholders. By adopting and improving these practices, European conservation planning might become more actionable and adaptable towards implementable policy outcomes. This article is part of the theme issue 'Ecological novelty and planetary stewardship: biodiversity dynamics in a transforming biosphere'.

Recent range shifts of moths, butterflies, and birds are driven by the breadth of their climatic niche.

Species are altering their ranges as a response to climate change, but the magnitude and direction of observed range shifts vary considerably among species. The ability to persist in current areas and colonize new areas plays a crucial role in determining which species will thrive and which decline as climate change progresses. Several studies have sought to identify characteristics, such as morphological and life-history traits, that could explain differences in the capability of species to shift their ranges together with a changing climate. These characteristics have explained variation in range shifts only sporadically, thus offering an uncertain tool for discerning responses among species. As long-term selection to past climates have shaped species' tolerances, metrics describing species' contemporary climatic niches may provide an alternative means for understanding responses to on-going climate change. Species that occur in a broader range of climatic conditions may hold greater tolerance to climatic variability and could therefore more readily maintain their historical ranges, while species with more narrow tolerances may only persist if they are able to shift in space to track their climatic niche. Here, we provide a first-filter test of the effect of climatic niche dimensions on shifts in the leading range edges in three relatively well-dispersing species groups. Based on the realized changes in the northern range edges of 383 moth, butterfly, and bird species across a boreal 1,100 km latitudinal gradient over c. 20 years, we show that while most morphological or life-history traits were not strongly connected with range shifts, moths and birds occupying a narrower thermal niche and butterflies occupying a broader moisture niche across their European distribution show stronger shifts towards the north. Our results indicate that the climatic niche may be important for predicting responses under climate change and as such warrants further investigation of potential mechanistic underpinnings.

Integrating carbon sequestration and biodiversity impacts in forested ecosystems: Concepts, cases, and policies.

The challenges posed by climate change, biodiversity loss, and land-use are deeply interconnected and integrated solutions are needed. This paper presents results from 11 contributions to a special issue covering topics of integrated modeling and spatial prioritization, mass-balance studies, Earth Observation techniques, research infrastructure developments, and evaluation of policy measures and economic compensation schemes. The spatial scale of the studies ranges from detailed site-specific to a European scale. This paper briefly summarizes the main findings of these studies, makes some general overall conclusions, and identifies topics for further research and methods developments.

Input data resolution affects the conservation prioritization outcome of spatially sparse biodiversity features.

Detailed spatial data are an essential part of land use planning and decision-making. Their spatial resolution sets limitations to their use, as coarse datasets are not suitable for detecting small-scale phenomena. In this study, we explored the effects of spatial resolution on the ecological outcome of a conservation prioritization process in Zonation software. Our study area was in Evo, southern Finland, covering a mosaic of managed and conserved forests. We produced the feature layers describing the forest characteristics using high-resolution remote sensing datasets, object-based mapping methods, and forest site type data. We found that increasing the resolution above the 16 m baseline resolution resulted in substantial errors. The conservation errors were the highest for rare features related to European Aspen, whereas the common features related to dominant tree species could benefit from the growth of cell size. We conclude that adequate spatial resolution is a prerequisite for efficient conservation prioritization, and that the size and spatial distribution of the features affect the resolution requirements.

Effect of forest management choices on carbon sequestration and biodiversity at national scale.

Forest management methods and harvest intensities influence wood production, carbon sequestration and biodiversity. We devised different management scenarios by means of stakeholder analysis and incorporated them in the forest growth simulator PREBAS. To analyse impacts of harvest intensity, we used constraints on total harvest: business as usual, low harvest, intensive harvest and no harvest. We carried out simulations on a wall-to-wall grid in Finland until 2050. Our objectives were to (1) test how the management scenarios differed in their projections, (2) analyse the potential wood production, carbon sequestration and biodiversity under the different harvest levels, and (3) compare different options of allocating the scenarios and protected areas. Harvest level was key to carbon stocks and fluxes regardless of management actions and moderate changes in proportion of strictly protected forest. In contrast, biodiversity was more dependent on other management variables than harvesting levels, and relatively independent of carbon stocks and fluxes.

Role of data uncertainty when identifying important areas for biodiversity and carbon in boreal forests.

Forest conservation plays a central role in meeting national and international biodiversity and climate targets. Biodiversity and carbon values within forests are often estimated with models, introducing uncertainty to decision making on which forest stands to protect. Here, we explore how uncertainties in forest variable estimates affect modelled biodiversity and carbon patterns, and how this in turn introduces variability in the selection of new protected areas. We find that both biodiversity and carbon patterns were sensitive to alterations in forest attributes. Uncertainty in features that were rare and/or had dissimilar distributions with other features introduced most variation to conservation plans. The most critical data uncertainty also depended on what fraction of the landscape was being protected. Forests of highest conservation value were more robust to data uncertainties than forests of lesser conservation value. Identifying critical sources of model uncertainty helps to effectively reduce errors in conservation decisions.

Modelling the regional potential for reaching carbon neutrality in Finland: Sustainable forestry, energy use and biodiversity protection.

The EU aims at reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 and Finland by 2035. We integrated results of three spatially distributed model systems (FRES, PREBAS, Zonation) to evaluate the potential to reach this goal at both national and regional scale in Finland, by simultaneously considering protection targets of the EU biodiversity (BD) strategy. Modelling of both anthropogenic emissions and forestry measures were carried out, and forested areas important for BD protection were identified based on spatial prioritization. We used scenarios until 2050 based on mitigation measures of the national climate and energy strategy, forestry policies and predicted climate change, and evaluated how implementation of these scenarios would affect greenhouse gas fluxes, carbon storages, and the possibility to reach the carbon neutrality target. Potential new forested areas for BD protection according to the EU 10% protection target provided a significant carbon storage (426-452 TgC) and sequestration potential (- 12 to - 17.5 TgCO2eq a-1) by 2050, indicating complementarity of emission mitigation and conservation measures. The results of the study can be utilized for integrating climate and BD policies, accounting of ecosystem services for climate regulation, and delimitation of areas for conservation.

Costs of integrating economics and conservation planning.

Recent literature on systematic conservation planning has focused strongly on economics. It is a necessary component of efficient conservation planning because the question is about effective resource allocation. Nevertheless, there is an increasing tendency toward economic factors overriding biological considerations. Focusing too narrowly on economic cost may lead us back toward solutions resembling those obtained by opportunistic choice of areas, the avoidance of which was the motivation for development of systematic approaches. Moreover, there are many overlooked difficulties in incorporating economic considerations reliably into conservation planning because available economic data and the free market are complex. For instance, economies based on free markets tend to be shortsighted, whereas biodiversity conservation aims far into the future. Although economic data are necessary, they should not be relied on too heavily or considered separately from other sociopolitical factors. We suggest focusing on development of more-comprehensive ecological-economic modeling, while not forgetting the importance of purely biological analyses that are needed as a point of reference for evaluating conservation outcomes.

Managing uncertainty in movement knowledge for environmental decisions.

Species' movements affect their response to environmental change but movement knowledge is often highly uncertain. We now have well-established methods to integrate movement knowledge into conservation practice but still lack a framework to deal with uncertainty in movement knowledge for environmental decisions. We provide a framework that distinguishes two dimensions of species' movement that are heavily influenced by uncertainty: knowledge about movement and relevance of movement to environmental decisions. Management decisions can be informed by their position in this knowledge-relevance space. We then outline a framework to support decisions around (1) increasing understanding of the relevance of movement knowledge, (2) increasing robustness of decisions to uncertainties and (3) improving knowledge on species' movement. Our decision-support framework provides guidance for managing movement-related uncertainty in systematic conservation planning, agri-environment schemes, habitat restoration and international biodiversity policy. It caters to different resource levels (time and funding) so that species' movement knowledge can be more effectively integrated into environmental decisions.

Phylogenetic diversity meets conservation policy: small areas are key to preserving eucalypt lineages.

Evolutionary and genetic knowledge is increasingly being valued in conservation theory, but is rarely considered in conservation planning and policy. Here, we integrate phylogenetic diversity (PD) with spatial reserve prioritization to evaluate how well the existing reserve system in Victoria, Australia captures the evolutionary lineages of eucalypts, which dominate forest canopies across the state. Forty-three per cent of remaining native woody vegetation in Victoria is located in protected areas (mostly national parks) representing 48% of the extant PD found in the state. A modest expansion in protected areas of 5% (less than 1% of the state area) would increase protected PD by 33% over current levels. In a recent policy change, portions of the national parks were opened for development. These tourism development zones hold over half the PD found in national parks with some species and clades falling entirely outside of protected zones within the national parks. This approach of using PD in spatial prioritization could be extended to any clade or area that has spatial and phylogenetic data. Our results demonstrate the relevance of PD to regional conservation policy by highlighting that small but strategically located areas disproportionally impact the preservation of evolutionary lineages.

Conservation planning with uncertain climate change projections.

Climate change is affecting biodiversity worldwide, but conservation responses are constrained by considerable uncertainty regarding the magnitude, rate and ecological consequences of expected climate change. Here we propose a framework to account for several sources of uncertainty in conservation prioritization. Within this framework we account for uncertainties arising from (i) species distributions that shift following climate change, (ii) basic connectivity requirements of species, (iii) alternative climate change scenarios and their impacts, (iv) in the modelling of species distributions, and (v) different levels of confidence about present and future. When future impacts of climate change are uncertain, robustness of decision-making can be improved by quantifying the risks and trade-offs associated with climate scenarios. Sensible prioritization that accounts simultaneously for the present and potential future distributions of species is achievable without overly jeopardising present-day conservation values. Doing so requires systematic treatment of uncertainties and testing of the sensitivity of results to assumptions about climate. We illustrate the proposed framework by identifying priority areas for amphibians and reptiles in Europe.

Range margin shifts of birds revisited - the role of spatiotemporally varying survey effort.

Global climate warming is predicted to lead to global and regional changes in the distribution of organisms. One influential approach to test this prediction using temporally repeated mapping surveys of organisms was suggested in a seminal paper by Thomas & Lennon (1999, Nature). The Thomas & Lennon approach corrects observed changes in the range margin for changes in the range size, and thus potentially controls for other broad-scale environmental changes between surveys, however the approach does not necessarily account for potential biases in sampling effort. To verify whether the issue of variation in sampling effort affects empirical estimates of shifts in range margin, we reanalyzed all three published studies exploring range margin changes of breeding birds in Great Britain (GB), Finland, and New York State (NY). Accounting for changes in survey effort on range margins lowered the estimated shift for breeding birds in New York, but the shift remained statistically significant. For Great Britain and Finland, for which no direct estimate of survey effort is available, we used species richness (a strong correlate of survey effort in New York) as a proxy and found that in both cases the estimated shift in range margin was significantly reduced and became nonsignificant. To understand how robust the approach is to sampling biases, we use a simulation model to show that the Thomas & Lennon approach is, under certain conditions, sensitive to changes in detection probability (probability to detect true occupancy) which in turn may be affected by changes in surveying effort between surveys. We thus found evidence that temporal changes in the distribution of breeding birds based on repeated mapping surveys may be inflated by changes in survey effort along range boundaries. We discuss possible approaches to deal with this issue in the analysis and design of national or regional surveys.