Data from: Choice of prioritization method impacts recommendations for climate-informed bird conservation in the United States

Climate-informed spatial planning is urgently needed to guide initiatives
aimed at both conserving biodiversity as a whole (e.g., protection of 30%
of lands and waters by 2030) and recovering North American avifauna in
particular. Various methods for prioritizing conservation areas exist, yet
alternative methods may direct managers to different lands for protection
and thus varying recommendations for meeting area-based targets. Here, we
used bird species distribution models and landcover projections to
systematically evaluate two widely-used methods for prioritizing areas
most likely to facilitate the persistence of multiple species under
climate change: (1) in situ macrorefugia, identified as areas of high
predicted species retention; and (2) complementarity-based optimizations,
identified using the Zonation conservation planning software. For 17
biogeographical groups in the continental United States, we compared
priority areas for bird conservation derived from these two alternatives
with respect to their spatial distributions and consensus (i.e., overlap),
expected conservation outcomes (e.g., species and functional diversity),
predicted climate change exposure, habitat characteristics, landscape
configurations, and degree of formal protection. Spatial distributions of
priority areas differed by biogeographical group and method, with 40.5%
consensus on average across groups. Consensus was extensive within
mountainous and coastal regions and limited at high latitudes (e.g.,
Alaska) and in flat, interior regions (e.g., grasslands). As expected,
complementarity-based optimizations more efficiently represented species
than retention-based in situ macrorefugia, especially for forest groups,
and had greater overall biodiversity value and better habitat condition.
Conversely, in situ macrorefugia encompassed higher elevations and larger
contiguous patches and were expected to experience less winter-season
warming. Formal protection averaged <50% across biogeographical
groups, regardless of prioritization method. Our findings illustrate the
value of complementarity-based optimizations for bird conservation under
climate change. More broadly, comparing approaches for prioritizing areas
for long-term species persistence can reveal critical tradeoffs in
recommendations for climate-informed protected area planning.