As the climate changes, protecting wildlife increasingly depends on both the conditions within protected areas and the connections between them. A new study published in Conservation Letters identifies where climatic stability and opportunities for movement coincide in Europe, and where gaps could undermine conservation.
The study examines climate stability across 78,793 protected areas in Europe and assesses connectivity between 10,908 of these sites using 10 large mammal species. The findings reveal geographical patterns across Europe, with mountain regions combining relatively stable climates with strong potential connectivity between protected areas.
Many western and central European lowlands, on the other hand, face both rapid climate change and limited opportunities for wildlife to move. The study also incorporated the energy animals need to cross terrain, alongside habitat suitability and movement barriers.
This allowed the researchers from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), and the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, to assess climatic stability alongside the potential for large mammals to move through surrounding landscapes.
"Today's protected areas cannot be treated as fit for the future, especially when we look at the cost of movement across different terrains", explains first author Dr Gavin Stark of iDiv and MLU.
How long will protected areas retain their temperature conditions?
To assess how long protected areas may retain their baseline temperature conditions, the researchers calculated a so-called climatic residence time. This estimates how quickly the temperatures currently found within a protected area are expected to shift, taking into account the area's size and the rate at which temperature conditions move across the landscape.
This analysis compared a historical baseline (1981-2010) with high-emissions climate projections through 2070, noting substantial regional differences. The median estimated climatic residence time across all protected areas in Germany was 0.9 years and 0.55 years in Poland, compared with 11.8 years in Portugal and 16.2 years in Greece, for example.
The incorporation of terrain-related energetic costs into the connectivity analysis allowed for a more comprehensive assessment of the potential of large mammals to move between protected areas in Europe. Steep slopes increase movement costs, while roads and other barriers can restrict passage.
Small protected areas with short climatic residence times warrant particular attention, especially where surrounding landscapes also restrict movement, according to the authors.
Different regions, different challenges
Montenegro, Albania, and Bosnia and Herzegovina generally combined longer climatic residence times with higher modelled connectivity. Several mountain systems, including the Scandinavian Mountains, the Pyrenees, and Cantabrian Mountains, the Alps, the Apennines, the Dinaric-Balkan region and the Carpathians, also combined relatively stable climatic conditions with strong potential for animal movement.
In contrast, the lowland areas of western and central Europe, including those in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Ireland faced a dual challenge: Climatic conditions were expected to change rapidly, while opportunities for animals to move through the landscape were limited.
Other regions face a different challenge. Finland, Estonia, and Latvia had relatively strong potential connectivity, but were less likely to retain their current climatic conditions over time. This means that in these areas, even where animals may be able to move through the landscape, good connections alone may not ensure access to suitable future climates. For the species modelled, potential movement pathways were generally narrower and more fragmented for carnivores, while herbivore pathways were broader and more diffuse.
The findings reflect fundamental differences in Europe's landscapes. In largely flat regions, animals may need to travel much farther to find comparable climatic conditions. In mountain regions, temperatures can change considerably with elevation, allowing similar climatic conditions to occur over shorter distances.
However, mountains can only serve as potential refuges if animals can reach them, making foothills, transitional habitats and surrounding landscapes important for connecting lowlands with higher elevations.
"Climate adaptation requires us to move beyond looking at protected areas individually. We need to plan for connected networks of habitats, identifying where existing links should be protected and where restoring landscape permeability could make a difference," says senior author Prof Dr Henrique Pereira of MLU and iDiv.
According to the authors, the framework can help planners identify areas where existing connections should be protected, habitats restored, and movement barriers addressed, with priorities assessed locally.
