Are protected areas enough to conserve terrestrial biodiversity in a 2050 climate?

Andy Jarvis, Julian Ramirez, Luigi Guarino, Reymondin, Hector Tobón, Daniel Amariles

Contents

• The boring bit – data quality• The fun bit – modelling• Our current coverage of protected areas –

pretty good!• The bad news – the future• The case of Taiwan• What to do? An example in agrobiodiversity• The next steps

The Main Messages

• The availability of biodiversity data is absolutely necessary to be able to PLAN conservation now and into the future

• Data should be shared nationally for developing national plans, but also internationally for designing international policy

• Especially in the case of climate change: species move around, and they do NOT respect national borders, nor do they need visas!

The Wallace Initiative framework:

1. Assessment of impacts of climate change on species distributions to:

– Determine refugia– Improve knowledge of risks of exceeding certain

levels of change by means of determining extinction rates

2. Map potential corridors for species3. Potential refugia, carbon dist., and design of

REDD mechanisms4. Driving of protected area design in the 21st

century5. Provide insights to aid the development of

adaptation plans

The Boring Bit – Data Quality

The GBIF database: status of the data

• The database holds 177,887,193 occurrences• Plantae occurrences are 44,706,505 (25,13%) • 33,340,000 (74.5%) have coordinates• How many of them are correct, and reliable?• How many new georreferences could we get?

CURRENT STATUS OFTHE Plantae RECORDS

Taxonomy: Plantae, Country: Taiwan

The GBIF database: status of the data

• How to make the data reliable enough?– Verify coordinates at different levels

• Are the records where they say they are?• Are the records inside land areas (for terrestrial plant

species only)• Are all the records within the environmental niche of the

taxon?• Sea records: not verifiable

– Correct wrong references– Add references to those that do not have– Cross-check with curators and feedback the database

The GBIF database: status of the data

• How to make that possible?– Java-based scripts– Spatial datasets: environmental descriptors,

administrative boundaries, high resolution land area mask

– Some processing power– Enough storage– And… most important: Java geeks!

• Using a random sample of 950.000 occurrences with coordinates

• Are the records where they say they are?: country-level verification

Records mostly locatedin country boundaries Inaccuracies in

coordinates

What on earth is this?

Records with null country: 58.051 6,11% of total Records with incorrect country: 6.918 0,72% of totalTotal excluded by country 64.969 6,83% of total

• Are the terrestrial plant species in land?: Coastal verification

Errors, and more errors

Records in the ocean: 9.866 1,03% of total Records near land (range 5km): 34.347 3,61% of totalRecords outside of mask: 369 0,04% of totalTotal excluded by mask 44.582 4.69% of total

Not so bad at all… stats

• 44’706.505 plant records• 33’340.008 (74,57%) with coordinates• From those

– 88.5% are geographically correct at two levels– 6.8% have null or incorrect country (incl. sea plant

species)– 4.7% are near the coasts but not in-land

Summary of errors or misrepresented data

TOTAL EVALUATED RECORDS: 950.000

Good records: 840.449 88.47% of total

RESULTING DATABASE

Next steps• It now takes 27 minutes to verify 950,000 records,

177million would be 83 hours (3 ½ days)• Identify terrestrial plant species and separate them from

sea species• Use a georreferencing algorithm to:

– Correct wrong references– Incorporate new location data to those with NULL lat,lon

• Interpret 2nd & 3rd-level administrative boundaries and use them too

• Implement environmental cross-checking (outliers)

So what do we face in terms

of biodiversity distribution in

2050?

The current situation

• Covering 13.8% of the total global surface (3.8% international, 10% national)

Results: protected areas per region

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000

Maximum hotspot overall

Ma

xim

um

ho

tsp

ot

wit

hin

PA

s Complete representativeness

Average representativeness

UK

World

Mexico

US

South AfricaNorth Africa

Middle eastSaudi Arabia

West Africa

Brazil

Current extent of in situ conservation

Global biodiversity currently well conserved

The data: current and future climates

• Current climates from WorldClim– 19 bioclimatic indices at 10 arc-minutes

• Future climates from downscaled GCM outputs– 18 models at 10 arc-minutes spatial resolution– For 2050s– Under the A2a emission scenario– 19 bioclimatic variables as for WorldClim– Control run with the average climate of all GCMs

The approach• Maximum entropy as a very accurate algorithm for niche

modeling• 10 or more points for each of the 33,004 taxa• Current: two extreme migration scenarios

– Unlimited migration (maximum adaptation)– Null migration (no adaptation)

• Measures of diversity and area loss– Per region and globally

• Within Protected Areas• Overall

Modeling approach• Aplying the maximum entropy algorithm

– Macoubea guianensis Aubl.: food for rural indigenous communities in the Amazon

Data harvesting from GBIF Building the presence model Projecting on future climates

NULL MIGRATION

UNLIMITEDMIGRATION

Potential habitatexpansion

CURRENT

Results: Current and future predicted species richness

• Important hotspots in Latin America, Europe, Australasia and Central Africa

• Displacement and loss of niches

NULL MIGRATIONUNLIMITED MIGRATION

Results: changes in species richness

• Null migration: losses everywhere• Unlimited migration: mostly displacement

Results: changes within regions

• Changes in species richness under both migration scenarios

-1000

-800

-600

-400

-200

0

200

400

Ru

ssia

Sa

ud

i Ara

bia

Re

st o

f Ce

ntr

al A

sia

Ind

on

esi

a

Ch

ina

Ca

na

da

Mid

dle

Ea

st

No

rth

Afr

ica

Jap

an

Ind

ia

Re

st o

f So

uth

Asi

a

So

uth

Afr

ica

Re

st o

f Ea

st A

sia

Po

lan

d

Wo

rld

We

st A

fric

a

So

uth

ern

an

d E

ast

Afr

ica

US

Au

stra

lia

Eu

rop

e

So

uth

Ko

rea

Re

st o

f Au

stra

lasi

a

So

uth

Am

eri

ca

Me

xico

Italy

Bra

zil

Ca

rib

be

an

Ge

rma

ny

UK

Ce

ntr

al A

me

rica

Fra

nce

Null migration

Unlimited migration

Results: in situ conservation under the context of CC

• Expected changes within protected areas (PAs) sometimes occur at a greater extent than non-protected areas

-1000

-800

-600

-400

-200

0

-1000 -800 -600 -400 -200 0

Change in species richness [NM]

Ch

ang

e in

sp

ecie

s ri

chn

ess

wit

hin

Pas

[N

M]

South America

Central America

France

Australasia

Germany

CaribbeanBrazil

US

Globe

-800

-600

-400

-200

0

200

400

-800 -600 -400 -200 0 200 400

Change in species richness [NM]

Ch

ang

e in

sp

ecie

s ri

chn

ess

wit

hin

Pas

[N

M]

France

Central America

Germany Caribbean

South Korea

NULL MIGRATION

UNLIMITED MIGRATION

Our protected areas not prepared to conserve biodiversity in 2050

Nature conservation in the Amazon

Climate-stable refugia: Protected areas

Climate-stable refugia:

Restoration

Planeando estrategias de adaptacion

Corridors through agriculture to enable movement of biodiversity

No future for biodiversity: Production

Plant diversity distribution

• Most diverse areas concentrated in southeastern and central Taiwan

• Western coast to be less important in terms of richness per se… but what about uniqueness?

Expected richness by 2050s (A2)NO ADAPTATION FULL ADAPTATION

Western coast patch with low Diversity… to be expanded

Central Taiwan to be affected evenconsidering full adaptation…

Expected relative changes by 2050s (A2)

Maximum loss of 27%... Not so high though… GREEN areas for conservation

RED areas are critical as will have significant losses even with Full Adaptation

NO ADAPTATION FULL ADAPTATION

In situ conclusions• Protected areas function today, at least on paper• Under a changed climate however, they do not

effectively conserve biodiversity, even assuming maximum adaptation

• In situ conservation needs to be oriented under the context of climate change– Areas to be strengthened (more control)– Areas to be expanded– Areas to be re-located (if migration does occur)

• Enabling migration is critical: corridors of protected areas

• Redesigned functional landscapes also essential: Eco-efficient agriculture

– When each of the specimens die?– How much does each specimen need to move to

survive?

Modelling migration

Pathways to adaptation in agrobiodiversity

Florunner, with no root-knot nematode resistance

COAN, with population density of root-knot nematodes >90% less than in Florunner

Wild relative species

A. batizocoi - 12 germplasm accessions

A. cardenasii - 17 germplasm accessions

A. diogoi - 5 germplasm accessions

The solution and the problem

SpeciesChange in area

of distribution (%)Predicted state

in 2055

batizocoi -100 Extinctcardenasii -100 Extinctcorrentina -100 Extinctdecora -100 Extinctdiogoi -100 Extinctduranensis -91 Threatenedglandulifera -17 Stablehelodes -100 Extincthoehnii -100 Extinctkempff-mercadoi -69 Near-Threatenedkuhlmannii -100 Extinctmagna -100 Extinctmicrosperma -100 Extinctpalustris -100 Extinctpraecox -100 Extinctstenosperma -86 Threatenedvillosa -51 Near-Threatened

Impact of Climate Change – Wild Peanuts

Massive loss of agrobiodiversity

• FAO (1998) estimates that since the beginning of this century, about 75% of the genetic diversity of agricultural crops has been lost.

• In China, for example, nearly 10,000 wheat varieties were cultivated in 1949. By the 1970s, only about 1,000 varieties were still in use (FAO 1996).

• In Mexico, only 20% of the maize varieties reported in 1930 are now known in the country (FAO 1996).

• In Germany about half of the plant species in pastures have been lost (Isselstein 2003)

• In south Italy about 75% of crop varieties have disappeared (Hammer et al. 2003).

Gap Analysis: Strategies to fill the holes in our

seed collections

The Gap Analysis process

Proxy for:

• Range of traits

Proxy for:

• Diversity

• Possibly biotic traits

Proxy for:

• Abiotic traits

The Gap Analysis road map

Taxonomy review Data gathering Georeferentiaton

Environmental

data gathering

Gap Analysis

process

Final

recommendations

HERBARIUM GERMPLASM

NOGERMPLASM

DEFICIENTGERMPLASM

POTENTIALRICHNESS

RAREENVIRONMENTS

Wild Vigna collecting priorities

• Spatial analysis on current conserved materials

• *Gaps* in current collections

• Definition and prioritisation of collecting areas

• 8 100x100km cells to complete collections of 23 wild Vigna priority species

Richness in collecting zones at species level

Richness in collecting zones at genepool level

CONCLUSIONS

What the data says

• Our protected areas work today, not tomorrow• Do we conserve 10 -> 20% of the land mass, or

do we need a new conservation paradigm?• The solutions for agricultural biodiversity are

actually more simple• We need to reconstruct our landscapes to

function as protected areas -> Eco-efficient agriculture

Reminder: The Main Messages

• The availability of biodiversity data is absolutely necessary to be able to PLAN conservation now and into the future

• Data should be shared nationally for developing national plans, but also internationally for designing international policy

• Especially in the case of climate change: species move around, and they do NOT respect national borders, nor do they need visas!

THANKS!a.jarvis@cgiar.org