Planning for future climate and land use change in the protection of global avian and mammalian biodiversity

Background: Global biodiversity conservation is heavily reliant upon protected areas (PAs), yet the extent to which PAs will protect biodiversity under scenarios of future change remains unclear. In addition, little attention has been paid to the phylogenetic uniqueness of PAs. We have previously shown the potential impacts of climate change on the ability of protected area networks to continue to protect biodiversity (Baker et al. 2015, Bagchi et al. 2013). In this project, we will predict climate change impacts globally, focusing on terrestrial birds and mammals. We will additionally consider the effects of concurrent human changes to the landscape.
Aims: We will: (1) simulate current and future distributions of birds and mammals globally using species distribution models (SDMs) built on both range extent and point record data. We will use these models, with species trait and habitat data, to simulate current assemblages of species in PAs, and will validate the modeled present-day assemblages. (2) We will simulate future movement of species among PAs by combining climate suitability data, habitat data and species trait data. (3) We will estimate the current and future phylogenetic diversity (PD) of PAs and will evaluate, for the first time, the most valuable PAs globally, in terms of PD. (4) We will use outputs from (1) and (2) in site prioritisation algorithms to evaluate how to most effectively conserve biodiversity, both now and in the future.
Methods: We have, in recent years, simulated the current and potential future range extent of most of the world’s terrestrial birds (ca 9000 species), using SDMs based on species range data, and have used these models to predict biodiversity of protected areas. We will use the IUCN global database of the world’s PAs, and the global database of Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas, to compare the impacts of future change on the assemblages of these two contrasting networks. We will extend previous modeling to terrestrial mammals and will also develop new models based on species records stored in global databases (GBIF, ebird, BirdLife). We will use methods developed at Durham (Voskamp et al., 2016) to estimate the PD of assemblages in PAs. Through collaborative links with BirdLife we have trait data for many of the world’s birds, and we will collate similar available data for mammals. We will combine the above information with land-cover data and species habitat preference data, to simulate responses to climate change, and will use models of land use and land-use change to infer changing habitat availability for species. We will use the site prioritisation program Marxan to highlight the most important biodiversity sites globally for birds and mammals, both now and into the future, and will highlight regions of high biodiversity value that are currently unprotected.
Student Training: The student will receive training in several key disciplines in conservation biology, including species distribution modeling and the use of site prioritisation analyses. They will join the Conservation Ecology Group at Durham, which includes a large cohort of postgraduates.