Long-term stability in protected-areas? A vision from American/New World amphibians

Abstract

Protected areas (PA) have proven to be one of the best ways to conserve biodiversity against environmental changes. Amphibians are considered the most threatened group, with habitat loss due to deforestation identified as their major threat. Here, we assessed for each PA of the American continent: 1) amphibian’s occurrence (Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) vs. International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) data); 2) temperature velocity and estimated the climate residence time, and using the latest models of the land future use; 3) we estimated the changes of natural vs. modified cover in three future scenarios. Amphibian occurrence showed differences between databases, while GBIF data shows that 52 % of the amphibian species occurring in the continent are in PA, based on IUCN data, 85 % are protected. Results from climate change show a low pace of climate velocity during the last century that is maintained in the green scenario (SSP126). However, change in temperature increases in rate in the rest of the scenarios, with scenario SSP58 showing the highest velocity of temperature change. Future estimates of residence times in PA show that lower levels as emission scenarios tend to be higher. These results are worrisome since climate lag, specifically temperature increase over the PA will probably affect amphibian communities as shown in previous studies. Changes in climate patterns have a direct—mostly negative—impact on amphibians’ ability to disperse and reproduce. The results of land use change were unexpected, since the categories showed minimal changes. However, the data on urbanization changes do not seem to be reflecting the trends of other databases, which may be causing artifacts in the comparisons in the future models of land use. Further research will be necessary to evaluate the extent of similarities and differences in future projections of land use including urbanization and human population between different databases.