Miguel Bastos Araújo: Palácio Vimioso, 01 of June of 2011, 15h0.
Spatial conservation planning has traditionally been implemented under the assumption that species distributions change relatively slowly, unless they are directly affected by human activities. However, over the past 100 years, Earth’s climate has become warmer and precipitation regimes have changed. Climate projections forecast even greater changes in the century to come, with impacts on biodiversity being expected to parallel changes in the climate. Environmental changes challenge the conventional approach to conservation planning, because they can alter the quantity, quality and distribution of suitable areas for many species. Some species will persist only if they can colonize new areas, although in some cases their dispersal abilities might be very limited and dependent on the existence of suitable ‘stepping stones’ between protected areas. In other cases, species might persist in areas where they can retain parts of their former ranges (i.e., ‘range retention areas’); the question is whether such range retention areas and/or stepping stones for species dispersal have been captured by existing conservation areas and, if not, whether there are tools available for helping the identification of such critical areas for biodiversity conservation in a changing World. In this seminar, I discuss some of the challenges to spatial conservation planning science to prevent or at least mitigate the impacts of climate change on biodiversity. I will start by reviewing key principles for systematic conservation planning, and examine the relative merits of conventional spatial planning methodologies to identify conservation areas for the persistence of species. I will argue that progress in conservation planning requires a reassessment of conventional views on persistence, namely that local extinctions and colorizations are best characterized by metapopulations in a quasi-equilibrium state. A range of spatial conservation planning methodologies that could be implemented to help mitigate the impacts of climate change on species is discussed.
