Mapping vulnerability and conservation adaptation strategies under climate change

Identification of spatial gradients in ecosystem vulnerability to global climate change and local stressors is an important step in the formulation and implementation of appropriate countermeasures1,2. Here we build on recent work to map ecoregional exposure to future climate, using an envelopebased gauge of future climate stability—defined as a measure of how similar the future climate of a region will be to the present climate3,4. We incorporate an assessment of each ecoregion’s adaptive capacity, based on spatial analysis of its natural integrity—the proportion of intact natural vegetation— to present a measure of global ecosystem vulnerability. The relationship between intactness (adaptive capacity) and stability (exposure) varies widely across ecoregions, with some of the most vulnerable, according to this measure, located in southern and southeastern Asia, western and central Europe, eastern South America and southern Australia. To ensure the applicability of these findings to conservation, we provide a matrix that highlights the potential implications of this vulnerability assessment for adaptation planning and offers a spatially explicit management guide. Anthropogenic climate change is impacting ecosystems globally, causing changes in phenology, species composition and range shifts5, while increasing environmental degradation is leading to habitat fragmentation or loss. These two factors in concert are likely to result in exacerbated biodiversity decline and extinction in the near future6. As rates of both biodiversity loss and threats are growing7, the identification of spatial gradients of ecosystem vulnerability to both global and regional drivers is required for the development of effective conservationmeasures. There are three shortcomings in present conservation-oriented climate change assessments, regardless of their spatial scale. The first concerns vulnerability assessments, which until recently have been focused solely on the system’s (extrapolated from species’) exposure to future climate change, without considering that vulnerability to climate change is influenced by the system’s (species’) sensitivity and adaptive capacity, as well as exposure1,2,8,9. For conservation planning purposes, this sole focus on exposure does not always equate to the identification of areas that have the most pressing needs for adaptation, particularly those that may be relatively stable climatically but are far more vulnerable to climate change owing to other reasons (for example, present levels of vegetation intactness). The second shortcoming is that most climate change assessments have been conducted on species-specific responses, and therefore have been largely unable to inform conservation actions in terms of ecosystem-focused adaptation10,11. The third shortcoming