Integrating Climate Change and Land Use Impacts to Explore Forest Conservation Policy

Biodiversity conservation in the context of climate change: Facing challenges and management strategies

Biodiversity conservation amidst the uncertainty of climate change presents unique challenges that necessitate precise management strategies. The study reported here was aimed at refining understanding of these challenges and to propose specific, actionable management strategies. Employing a quantitative literature analysis, we meticulously examined 1268 research articles from the Web of Science database between 2005 and 2023. Through Cite Spaces and VOS viewer software, we conducted a bibliometric analysis and thematic synthesis to pinpoint emerging trends, key themes, and the geographical distribution of research efforts. Our methodology involved identifying patterns within the data, such as frequency of keywords, co-authorship networks, and citation analysis, to discern the primary focus areas within the field. This approach allowed us to distinguish between research concentration areas, specifically highlighting a predominant interest in Environmental Sciences Ecology (67.59 %) and Biodiversity Conservation (22.63 %). The identification of adaptive management practices and ecosystem services maintenance are central themes in the research from 2005 to 2023. Moreover, challenges such as understanding phenological shifts, invasive species dynamics, and anthropogenic pressures critically impact biodiversity conservation efforts. Our findings underscore the urgent need for precise, data-driven decision-making processes in the face of these challenges. Addressing the gaps identified, our study proposes targeted solutions, including the establishment of germplasm banks for at-risk species, the development of advanced genomic and microclimate models, and scenario analysis to predict and mitigate future conservation challenges. These strategies are aimed at enhancing the resilience of biodiversity against the backdrop of climate change through integrated, evidence-based approaches. By leveraging the compiled and analyzed data, this study offers a foundational framework for future research and practical action in biodiversity conservation strategies, demonstrating a path forward through detailed analysis and specified solutions.

Determining the role of climate change in India's past forest loss

Tropical forests in India have declined at an alarming rate over the past century, with extensive literature focusing on the high contributions of agricultural expansions to deforestation, while the effects of climate change have largely been overlooked. Climate change effects, such as increasing temperatures, drought and flooding, have already occurred, and are projected to worsen. Climate velocity, a metric that accounts for spatial heterogeneity in climate, can help identify contiguous areas under greater climate stress and potential climate refuges in addition to traditional temporal trends. Here, we examined the relative contribution of climate changes to forest loss in India during the period 2001-2018, at two spatial (regional and national) and two temporal (seasonal and annual) scales. This includes, for the first time, a characterization of climate velocity in the country. Our findings show that annual forest loss increased substantially over the 17-year period examined (2001-2018), with the majority of forest loss occurring in the Northeast region. Decreases in temporal trends of temperature and precipitation were most associated with forest losses, but there was large spatial and seasonal variation in the relationship. In every region except the Northeast, forest losses were correlated with faster velocities of at least one climate variable but overlapping areas of high velocities were rare. Our findings indicate that climate changes have played an important role in India's past forest loss, but likely remain secondary to other factors at present. We stress concern for climates velocities recorded in the country, reaching 97 km year-1 , and highlight that understanding the different regional and seasonal relationships between climatic conditions and forest distributions will be key to effective protection of the country's remaining forests as climate change accelerates.

Characterizing New Wintering Sites for Monarch Butterfly Colonies in Sierra Nevada, Mexico

Every year, Danaus plexippus (Linnaeus, 1758) travels to hibernate in oyamel fir forests located between the limits of the states of Michoacán and Mexico in Mexico. Climate change and anthropogenic actions are diminishing oyamel fir forests in Mexico, putting pressure on the habitats of monarch butterflies. In the last decade, new colonies outside their usual range have been predicted through modeling and reported by the National Commission on Protected Areas of Mexico. The objectives of the study were to recover information on the historical and new hibernation sites, reported or modeled, from different literature sources. We also aimed to perform a bioclimatic and forest biometric characterization of new monarch butterfly colonies located in Sierra Nevada in Mexico to provide information to aid in conservation strategies for the monarch butterfly population. We conducted field trips to georeference the colonies at sites located in the Atlautla municipality in Mexico State. Climatic, topographic, and forest biometric variables were used to characterize the sites physically. It was found that the butterfly’s roosts occurred at a higher elevation than those recorded by other sources. The locations where the monarch’s colonies were established, in the east of Mexico State, provide information relevant to defining and developing policies for their conservation.

Integrating the Rabinowitz rarity framework with a National Plant Inventory in South Korea

Increasingly large presence-only survey datasets are becoming available for use in conservation assessments. Potentially, these records could be used to determine spatial patterns of plant species rarity and endemism. We test the integration of a large South Korean species record database with Rabinowitz rarity classes. Rabinowitz proposed seven classes of species rarity using three variables: geographic range, habitat specificity, and local population size. We estimated the range size and local abundance of 2,215 plant species from species occurrence records and habitat specificity as the number of landcover types each species' records were found in. We classified each species into a rarity class or as common, compared species composition by class to national lists, and mapped the spatial pattern of species richness for each rarity class. Species were classed to narrow or wide geographic ranges using 315 km, the average from a range size index of all species (D max), based on maximum distance between observations. There were four classes each within the narrow and wide range groups, sorted using cutoffs of local abundance and habitat specificity. Nationally listed endangered species only appeared in the narrow-range classes, while nationally listed endemic species appeared in almost all classes. Species richness in most rarity classes was high in northeastern South Korea especially for species with narrow ranges. Policy implications. Large presence-only surveys may be able to estimate some classes of rarity better than others, but modification to include estimates of local abundance and habitat types, could greatly increase their utility. Application of the Rabinowitz rarity framework to such surveys can extend their utility beyond species distribution models and can identify areas that need further surveys and for conservation priority. Future studies should be aware of the subjectivity of the rarity classification and that regional scale implementations of the framework may differ.

Assessing shortfalls and complementary conservation areas for national plant biodiversity in South Korea

Protected areas (PAs) are often considered the most important biodiversity conservation areas in national plans, but PAs often do not represent national-scale biodiversity. We evaluate the current conservation status of plant biodiversity within current existing PAs, and identify potential additional PAs for South Korea. We modeled species ranges for 2,297 plant species using Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines and compared the level of mean range representation in South Korea’s existing PAs, which comprise 5.7% of the country’s mainland area, with an equal-area alternative PA strategy selected with the reserve algorithm Marxan. We also used Marxan to model two additional conservation scenarios that add lands to approach the Aichi Biodiversity Target objectives (17% of the country). Existing PAs in South Korea contain an average of 6.3% of each plant species’ range, compared to 5.9% in the modeled equal-area alternative. However, existing PAs primarily represent a high percentage of the ranges for high-elevation and small range size species. The additional PAs scenario that adds lands to the existing PAs covers 14,587.55 km², and would improve overall plant range representation to a mean of 16.8% of every species’ range. The other additional PAs scenario, which selects new PAs from all lands and covers 13,197.35 km², would improve overall plant range representation to a mean of 13.5%. Even though the additional PAs that includes existing PAs represents higher percentages of species’ ranges, it is missing many biodiversity hotspots in non-mountainous areas and the additional PAs without locking in the existing PAs represent almost all species’ ranges evenly, including low-elevation ones with larger ranges. Some priority conservation areas we identified are expansions of, or near, existing PAs, especially in northeastern and southern South Korea. However, lowland coastal areas and areas surrounding the capital city, Seoul, are also critical for biodiversity conservation in South Korea.