Land use configuration shapes climate change vulnerability of gallery forests in a savannah ecosystem

Abstract

Interactions between anthropogenic pressures make it difficult to predict biodiversity change and plan conservation interventions. Climate change is expected to drive widespread ecological change in the tropics over the coming decades, but it is unclear where and when these changes are going to intensify, or reduce, the impacts of additional pressures from human land use. To address this uncertainty, we apply a novel vulnerability assessment framework to show how land use configuration modifies the extent of potential harms arising from climate change to gallery forests, an important vegetation type in tropical savannahs. We highlight how the spatial distribution of climate change (specifically, change in annual rainfall) interacts with the spatial distribution of land use (specifically, cropland), as well as the biophysical context of the study site (the W-Arly-Pendjari transboundary protected area in West Africa), to shape the vulnerability of gallery forests to changes in rainfall in the region. Due to the pathways by which rainfall change and land use interact, vulnerability is especially elevated in core protected areas, warranting particular attention from conservation managers. Overall, our work illustrates how unexpected patterns in potential negative consequences can arise through interactions between pressures on biodiversity, highlighting the importance of considering mechanistic pathways for predicting biodiversity outcomes under multifaceted global environmental change.