Will climate change reduce the efficacy of protected areas for amphibian conservation in Italy?

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_F44366C0469F
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Title
Will climate change reduce the efficacy of protected areas for amphibian conservation in Italy?
Journal
Biological Conservation
Author(s)
D'Amen Manuela, Bombi Pierluigi, Pearman Peter B., Schmatz Dirk R., Zimmermann Niklaus E., Bologna Marco A.
ISSN
0006-3207
ISSN-L
0006-3207
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2011
Volume
144
Number
3
Pages
989-997
Language
english
Notes
ISI:000288629400007
Abstract
Amphibians are an important and imperiled component of biodiversity. In this study we analyze the efficacy of Italian reserve network for protecting multiple amphibian species in a climate change scenario, considering both nationally designated areas and Natura 2000 sites. Our approach is based on ensemble niche modeling estimate of potential range shift under two carbon emission scenarios (A1FI and B1) and two dispersal assumptions. The predicted distributions were used to perform gap and irreplaceability analyses. Our findings show that the current Italian reserve network incompletely represents current amphibian diversity and its geographic pattern. The combination of the nationally designated protected areas and the Natura 2000 sites improves current representation of amphibians, but conservation targets based on geographic range extent are achieved for only 40% of species. Under the future scenarios, Natura 2000 sites become a crucial component of the protected areas system. Nonetheless, we predict that climate change decreases for many species the amount of suitable range falling into reserves, regardless of our assumptions about dispersal. We identify some currently unprotected areas that have high irreplaceability scores for species conservation and that maintain their importance under all the future scenarios we considered. We recommend designation of new reserves in these areas to help guarantee long-term amphibian conservation.
Keywords
Global warming, Gap analysis, Irreplaceability, Conservation priorities
Create date
24/10/2013 11:10
Last modification date
20/08/2019 17:21
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