Trade-offs and synergies between bird conservation and wildfire suppression in the face of global change

1. The combined effects of climate change and other factors, such as land use change or fire disturbance, pose daunting challenges for biodiversity conservation worldwide.
2. In this study, we predicted the future effectiveness of the Natura 2000 (N2000), the current network of protected areas (PA) 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. Bird assemblage distributions were predicted using the spatially-explicit species assemblage modelling frameworkSESAMusing distribution mo...