Global changes, like climate and land-cover changes and biological invasions, are driving major biodiversity declines. Protected areas (PAs) are key to conservation, yet their efficacy in safeguarding species and their functions under these changes remain uncertain. Global changes can trigger species’ redistributions, but how this will restructure ecological communities and affect functional diversity (FD) is still unexplored. Identifying unprotected FD hotspots and their potential to contribute to global conservation goals (e.g., through threat abatement metrics) can enhance global conservation effectiveness.
TETRA-CHANGE (FWF grant 10.55776/ESP2373325) aims to assess changes in tetrapod communities within PAs under different scenarios and identify priority sites for functionally unique native threatened species, quantifying their contribution in reducing species’ extinction risk. In TETRA-CHANGE, the most updated global spatial, environmental, and species-specific data for native and alien terrestrial tetrapods will be leveraged. FD metrics in current PAs communities will be measured, characterizing functional trait spaces of all tetrapods. Future potential species’ distributions will be modeled using SDMs with climate and land-cover change scenarios, accounting for available habitat. By comparing future and current FD, community changes will be assessed. Finally, linking these results to the STAR metric, the threat abatement potential of unprotected priority sites for functionally unique native threatened species will be quantified.
TETRA-CHANGE features international collaborations with Hanno Seebens (U. Giessen), Laure Gallien (Nat. Centre for Scientific Research), Damaris Zurell (U. Potsdam), Céline Bellard (U. Paris-Saclay), and Juliano Sarmento Cabral (U. Bonn).
