Defining spatial conservation priorities in the face of land-use and climate change Frederico V. Faleiro a,b , Ricardo B. Machado c , Rafael D. Loyola a,⇑ a Departamento de Ecologia, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Brazil b Programa de Pós-graduação em Ecologia & Evolução, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Brazil c Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade de Brasília, Brazil article info Article history: Received 25 April 2012 Received in revised form 19 September 2012 Accepted 27 September 2012 Keywords: Brazilian savanna Cerrado Convention on Biological Diversity Global warming Systematic conservation planning Species distribution models Uncertainties abstract Creating and managing protected areas is critical to ensure the persistence of species but dynamic threats like land-use change and climate change may reduce the effectiveness of protected areas planned under a static approach. Here we defined spatial priorities for the conservation of non-flying mammals inhabiting the Cerrado Biodiversity Hotspot, Brazil, that overcome the likely impacts of land-use and climate change to this imperiled fauna. We used cutting-edge methods of species distribution models combining thou- sands of model projections to generate a comprehensive ensemble of forecasts that shows the likely impacts of climate change in mammal distribution. We also generate a future land-use model that indi- cates how the region would be impacted by habitat loss in the future. We then used our models to pro- pose priority sites for mammal conservation minimizing species climate-forced dispersal distance as well as the mean uncertainty associated to species distribution models and climate models. At the same time, our proposal maximizes complementary species representation across the existing network of protected areas. Including land-use changes and model uncertainties in the planning process changed significantly the spatial distribution of priority sites in the region. While the inclusion of land-use models altered the spatial location of priority sites at the regional scale, the effects of climate change tended to operate at the local scale. Our solutions already include possible dispersal corridors linking current and future priority sites for mammal conservation, as well as a formal risk analysis based on planning uncertainties. We hope to provide decision makers with conservation portfolios that could be negotiated at the decision level. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Human population growth has triggered many threats to biodi- versity like global changes, overexploitation, pollution, and intro- duction of invasive species (Brook et al., 2008; Schipper et al., 2008; Hoffmann et al., 2010; Maclean and Wilson, 2011; Mant- yka-Pringle et al., 2011). Among these threats, land-use change and climate change are considered the worst (Sala et al., 2000; Thomas et al., 2004; Pereira et al., 2010) and they have a clear syn- ergistic effect (Brook et al., 2008; Asner et al., 2010; Mantyka-Prin- gle et al., 2011). Further, assessments of future global changes predict that biodiversity will continue to decline (Sala et al., 2000; Pereira et al., 2010). Climate change causes selective micro-evolutionary pressures in species, favoring individuals capable of dispersing either locally or regionally to track suitable habitats (Holt, 1990; Parmesan and Yohe, 2003; Parmesan, 2006; Dawson et al., 2011). Given the prop- er timeframe, the dispersal process can result in range shifts that have been of great importance for species dealing with past and current climatic changes; thus, it is likely that dispersal should have great importance in the future (Graham and Grimm, 1990; Lyons, 2003; Parmesan and Yohe, 2003). However, human-driven landscape modifications may block dispersal from current to the future suitable habitats increasing species extinction risk by their synergistic effect with changing climates (Brook et al., 2008; Asner et al., 2010; Hof et al., 2011; Mantyka-Pringle et al., 2011). The main issue here is that climate change, as well as other dy- namic threats, poses a new challenge to the static way conserva- tion planning is usually done (Hannah, 2010). Conservation biology has proposed creative solutions to deal with these threats, most focusing on the establishment of protected areas (Williams et al., 2005; Lawler, 2009; Mawdsley et al., 2009; Hannah, 2010; Dawson et al., 2011; Mawdsley, 2011; Loyola et al., 2012). Creating and managing protected areas is critical to ensure the persistence of species but these dynamic threats may reduce the effectiveness of protected areas planned under a static approach (Araújo et al., 2004; Hannah, 2010; Dobrovolski et al., 2011a,b). It seems neces- sary to incorporate species’ range shifts in spatial conservation plans to ensure their effectiveness in the future (Araújo et al., 0006-3207/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2012.09.020 ⇑ Corresponding author. Address: Departamento de Ecologia, Universidade Federal de Goiás, CP 131, CEP 74001-970 Goiânia, GO, Brazil. Tel.: +55 62 3521 17 28; fax: +55 62 3521 1190. E-mail address: rdiasloyola@gmail.com (R.D. Loyola). Biological Conservation 158 (2013) 248–257 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Biological Conservation journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biocon