Conservation needs to integrate fire management into an adaptive planning perspective to leverage wildfire suppression co-benefits for bird conservation

Abstract

Protected areas (PAs) play a key role in safeguarding biodiversity worldwide. However, their future role can be seriously compromised in dynamic socio-ecological systems due to their limited ability to incorporate the future impact of changing environmental conditions. In this study, we predicted the future effectiveness of the Natura 2000 (N2000) - the current network of protected areas in Europe - at maintaining and representing suitable environmental conditions for a set of 79 bird species between 2000 and 2050 in a fire-prone area strongly affected by land abandonment processes in NE Spain. We then compared PA performance against a set of alternative priority areas for conservation, which take into account fire-vegetation dynamics, selected by using a conservation planning tool (MARXAN). Fire-vegetation dynamics were modelled using a process-based model (MEDFIRE MODEL) under alternative fire management and climate change scenarios. Potential changes in the bird community composition between 2000 and 2050 were predicted under each fire management scenario by applying the SESAM ('spatially explicit species assemblage modelling') framework. This modelling framework applies successive filters to constrained predictions of richness and composition obtained by stacking species distribution models that hierarchically integrate climate change and wildfire-vegetation dynamics. The overall performance of the PA systems was predicted to be higher in terms of representativeness for 2050 (from 49 to 52% across management scenarios) than for present-day conditions (47.9%) for both the static (i.e., current N2000) and adaptive (i.e., MARXAN solutions) systems. However, the effectiveness of the PAs under 2050 conditions was only predicted to be higher than currently when applying an adaptive system. Fire management was also predicted to significantly affect their performance. The efficiency of the current PA system was predicted to decrease from 17.4 to 15% over the next decades. However, a more efficient PA system could be achieved with a conservation planning approach that explicitly considers fire-vegetation dynamics and their management. Our findings showed that the current Natura 2000 might still hold an important bird conservation value by 2050. However, the relocation of some protected areas could be also considered along the next decades to substantially increase bird conservation effectiveness. This study showed how the integration of fire-vegetation dynamics (i.e., fire disturbance, natural succession and post-fire regeneration), fire management policies and their objectives within conservation planning might provide 'win-win' solutions for bird conservation and fire prevention in fire-prone abandoned landscapes. This is especially relevant in the Mediterranean Europe, where the number of high-intensity fires is expected to increase over the next decades due to the interacting effects of rural abandoment and climate warming.