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Global Protected Areas as refuges for amphibians and reptiles under climate change

Mi C 1 , Ma L 2 , Yang M 3 , Li X 1 , Meiri S 4 , Roll U 5 Show all authors , Oskyrko O 1 , Pincheira-Donoso D 6 , Harvey LP 7 , Jablonski D 8 , Safaei-Mahroo B 9 , Ghaffari H 10 , Smid J 11 , Jarvie S 12 , Kimani RM 13 , Masroor R 14 , Kazemi SM 15 , Nneji LM 16 , Fokoua AMT 17 , Tasse Taboue GC 18 , Bauer A 19 , Nogueira C 20 , Meirte D 21 , Chapple DG 22 , Das I 23 , Grismer L 24 , Avila LJ 25 , Ribeiro Júnior MA 26 , Tallowin OJS 27 , Torres-Carvajal O 28 , Wagner P 29 , Ron SR 30 , Wang Y 31 , Itescu Y 32 , Nagy ZT 33 , Wilcove DS 16 , Liu X 34 , Du W 35

Affiliations 

  • 1 Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
  • 2 School of Ecology, Shenzhen Campus of Sun Yat-sen University, Shenzhen, China
  • 3 Zhejiiang University, Hangzhou, China
  • 4 School of Zoology and Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
  • 5 Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology, The Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Midreshet Ben- Gurion, Israel
  • 6 School of Biological Sciences, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, UK
  • 7 School of Science and Technology, Nottingham Trent University, Clifton Campus, Nottingham, UK
  • 8 Department of Zoology, Comenius University in Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia
  • 9 Pars Herpetologists Institute, Corner of third Jahad alley, Arash Str., Jalal-e Ale-Ahmad Boulevard, Tehran, Iran
  • 10 Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, Iran
  • 11 Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
  • 12 Otago Regional Council, Dunedin, 9016, Aotearoa, New Zealand
  • 13 National Museum of Kenya, Herpetology Section, Nairobi, Kenya
  • 14 Zoological Sciences Division, Pakistan Museum of Natural History, Garden Avenue, Shakarparian, Islamabad, Pakistan
  • 15 Zagros Herpetological Institute, Somayyeh Avenue, Qom, Iran
  • 16 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
  • 17 Laboratory of Zoology, University of Yaoundé, Yaoundé, Cameroon
  • 18 Multipurpose Research Station, Institute of Agricultural Research for development, Bangangté, Cameroon
  • 19 Department of Biology and Center for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Stewardship, Villanova University, Villanova, PA, USA
  • 20 Departamento de Ecologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
  • 21 Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium
  • 22 School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia
  • 23 Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Sarawak, Malaysia
  • 24 Department of Biology, La Sierra University, Riverside, CA, USA
  • 25 Grupo Herpetología Patagónica (GHP-LASIBIBE), Instituto Patagónico para el Estudio de los Ecosistemas Continentales (IPEEC-CONICET), Puerto Madryn, Argentina
  • 26 Department of Zoology, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
  • 27 UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge, UK
  • 28 Museo de Zoología, Escuela de Ciencias Biológicas, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador
  • 29 Allwetterzoo, Münster, Germany
  • 30 Museo de Zoología, Escuela de Biología, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Pontificia, Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador
  • 31 Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, China
  • 32 Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), Müggelseedamm, Berlin, Germany
  • 33 Independent researcher, Berlin, Germany
  • 34 Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. liuxuan@ioz.ac.cn
  • 35 Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. duweiguo@ioz.ac.cn
Nat Commun, 2023 Mar 13;14(1):1389.
PMID: 36914628 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-36987-y

Abstract

Protected Areas (PAs) are the cornerstone of biodiversity conservation. Here, we collated distributional data for >14,000 (~70% of) species of amphibians and reptiles (herpetofauna) to perform a global assessment of the conservation effectiveness of PAs using species distribution models. Our analyses reveal that >91% of herpetofauna species are currently distributed in PAs, and that this proportion will remain unaltered under future climate change. Indeed, loss of species' distributional ranges will be lower inside PAs than outside them. Therefore, the proportion of effectively protected species is predicted to increase. However, over 7.8% of species currently occur outside PAs, and large spatial conservation gaps remain, mainly across tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, and across non-high-income countries. We also predict that more than 300 amphibian and 500 reptile species may go extinct under climate change over the course of the ongoing century. Our study highlights the importance of PAs in providing herpetofauna with refuge from climate change, and suggests ways to optimize PAs to better conserve biodiversity worldwide.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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