Integrating climate adaptation and biodiversity conservation in the global ocean

Abstract

The impacts of climate change and the socioecological challenges they present are ubiquitous and increasingly severe. Practical efforts to operationalize climate-responsive design and management in the global network of marine protected areas (MPAs) are required to ensure long-term effectiveness for safeguarding marine biodiversity and ecosystem services. Here, we review progress in integrating climate change adaptation into MPA design and management and provide eight recommendations to expedite this process. Climate-smart management objectives should become the default for all protected areas, and made into an explicit international policy target. Furthermore, incentives to use more dynamic management tools would increase the climate change responsiveness of the MPA network as a whole. Given ongoing negotiations on international conservation targets, now is the ideal time to proactively reform management of the global seascape for the dynamic climate-biodiversity reality.

Fig. 1. Literature review of climate change consideration in MPA design.

(A) Number of studies from the review where MPA climate change adaptation strategies were broadly discussed, presented as a proof of concept, or implemented in practice, respectively. (B) Location and brief description of the six implemented examples. Green areas represent MPA locations from the World Database on Protected Areas (79). See main text for further discussion, including search limitations, and text and tables in the Supplementary Materials for full methodological details and results.

Fig. 2. Vulnerability of the existing global MPA network to climate change.

(A) Bivariate map of the time of emergence and historical variability for the global ocean [see (B) for color axes] under a business-as-usual emissions scenario [Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5]. Time of emergence refers to the year when projected mean sea surface temperature (SST) at a given location exceeds the bounds of preindustrial conditions. Historical variability is the total thermal range calculated from a detrended 1900 to 2018 SST time series. (B) Quadrant plot of MPA position in climate emergence and historical variability space. Black points represent 1° × 1° grid cells within MPAs, with larger MPAs having more points based on overlap with SST data (see text in the Supplementary Materials for full methodological details). Histograms provide the distribution of MPAs along each axis. Percentage values indicate the proportion of MPA area (grid cells) in each quadrant; percentages in brackets indicate the proportion of the global ocean in each quadrant. Color scale is based on background distribution in global ocean.

Fig. 3. The need for climate-responsive management features.

Climate-driven changes in mobile species, biogenic habitat features, and static geomorphological features (e.g., seamounts and ridges), with management measures (permanent and dynamic) superimposed (left column). In this example, under the current distribution percent coverage targets (e.g., Aichi Target 11 of 10% by 2020) will be met for many species, habitats, and features (right column). However, climate-driven shifts will affect future distributions such that these targets would no longer be met, as a result of species and biogenic habitats expanding, shrinking, disappearing, or moving in relation to static protected features (although some features may get increased protection if they move into MPAs). Dynamic closures (hashed boxes, Table 2) can help to fill the protection gap in a more rapid manner than simply extending or adding new MPAs; however, these dynamic areas will not count toward international targets unless they meet OECM criteria (see Table 3).