Limiting climate change to less than 2°C is the focus of international policy under the climate convention (UNFCCC), and is essential to preventing extinctions, a focus of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The post‐2020 biodiversity framework drafted by the CBD proposes conserving 30% of both land and oceans by 2030. However, the combined impact on extinction risk of species from limiting climate change and increasing the extent of protected and conserved areas has not been assessed. Here we create conservation spatial plans to minimize extinction risk in the tropics using data on 289 219 species and modeling two future greenhouse gas concentration pathways (RCP2.6 and 8.5) while varying the extent of terrestrial protected land and conserved areas from <17% to 50%. We find that limiting climate change to 2°C and conserving 30% of terrestrial area could more than halve aggregate extinction risk compared with uncontrolled climate change and no increase in conserved area.

Conservation planning is crucial for megadiverse countries where biodiversity is coupled with incomplete reserve systems and limited resources to invest in conservation. Using Peru as an example of a megadiverse country, we asked whether the national system of protected areas satisfies biodiversity conservation needs. Further, to complement the existing reserve system, we identified and prioritized potential conservation areas using a combination of species distribution modeling, conservation planning and connectivity analysis. Based on a set of 2,869 species, including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, butterflies, and plants, we used species distribution models to represent species' geographic ranges to reduce the effect of biased sampling and partial knowledge about species' distributions. A site-selection algorithm then searched for efficient and complementary proposals, based on the above distributions, for a more representative system of protection. Finally, we incorporated connectivity among areas in an innovative post-hoc analysis to prioritize those areas maximizing connectivity within the system. Our results highlight severe conservation gaps in the Coastal and Andean regions, and we propose several areas, which are not currently covered by the existing network of protected areas. Our approach helps to find areas that contribute to creating a more representative, connected and efficient network.

Ecuador will experience a significant expansion of the oil industry in its Amazonian region, one of the most biodiverse areas of the world. In view of the changes that are about to come, we explore the conflicts between oil extraction interests and biodiversity protection and apply systematic conservation planning to identify priority areas that should be protected in different oil exploitation scenarios. First, we quantified the current extent of oil blocks and protected zones and their overlap with two biodiversity indicators: 25 ecosystems and 745 species (whose distributions were estimated via species distribution models). With the new scheme of oil exploitation, oil blocks cover 68% (68,196 km²) of the Ecuadorian Amazon; half of it occupied by new blocks open for bids in the southern Amazon. This region is especially vulnerable to biodiversity losses, because peaks of species diversity, 19 ecosystems, and a third of its protected zones coincide spatially with oil blocks. Under these circumstances, we used Marxan software to identify priority areas for conservation outside oil blocks, but their coverage was insufficient to completely represent biodiversity. Instead, priority areas that include southern oil blocks provide a higher representation of biodiversity indicators. Therefore, preserving the southern Amazon becomes essential to improve the protection of Amazonian biodiversity in Ecuador, and avoiding oil exploitation in these areas (33% of the extent of southern oil blocks) should be considered a conservation alternative. Also, it is highly recommended to improve current oil exploitation technology to reduce environmental impacts in the region, especially within five oil blocks that we identified as most valuable for the conservation of biodiversity. The application of these and other recommendations depends heavily on the Ecuadorian government, which needs to find a better balance between the use of the Amazon resources and biodiversity conservation.

Climate change research often relies on downscaled General Circulation Models (GCM), projections of future scenarios that are used to build ecological and evolutionary models. With more than 35 different GCMs widely available at resolution of 10km and finer, standardized methods to understand the differences among GCM projections in a region of interest and to choose which GCM to use for analysis are essential to maximize relevance to policy and to assure a proper treatment of uncertainty. To help researchers and policymakers understand and select form the range of available GCM scenarios, we have developed GCM compareR, an open‐source web application written in R using Shiny. GCM compareR is freely accessible with an easy interactive user interface, has preloaded climate scenario data to increase the speed of analysis, and is fully documented to ensure reproducibility. Users of the application need no prior experience in coding. GCM compareR is designed to compare GCMs and different climate change scenarios to provide full, documented exploration of the possible alternative futures from within the range of projections in CMIP5 climate models. Designed with a wide group of users in mind, including ecologists, conservationists and policy makers, the application is designed to adapt analyses to any geographic area of interest. Results are provided as figures, tables and maps that clearly communicate the differences among model projections for the region. Additionally, the tool allows for the export of a report that records the parameter choices and results of a session, along with contextual information, to make the analysis fully transparent and replicable.

Aim: Mediterranean Chile is part of the five recognized mediterranean‐type climates in the world and harbours a very rich floral diversity. Climate change has been reported as a significant threat to its biodiversity. We used the flora of Mediterranean Chile to analyse how biodiversity patterns, as measured by phylogenetic diversity, genus and species richness will respond to climate change scenarios and identify the areas that will harbour the greatest evolutionary potential and biodiversity richness. We also evaluated how these spatial patterns are depicted within the current network of protected areas.Location: Chilean Mediterranean climate‐type Region, South America.Methods: Biodiversity metrics were evaluated for current and future climatic scenarios. Species distribution models were done using Maxent for 1.727 species and 571 genera. Relationships between species/genera gain, loss and turnover were evaluated. For Mediterranean endemic species, loss and gain were also related to life‐form. Finally, variation in species gain, loss and turnover was evaluated in future climate change scenarios within and outside Mediterranean Chile state protected areas.Results: We found a general decrease in species richness in the entire Region towards future climate change scenarios. Phylogenetic diversity is predicted to be higher than expected by richness in the north–south of the area and lower than expected by richness in the Andes Mountain. The highest average species and genus loss is predicted to occur outside the protected areas; meanwhile, species and genus gain is higher within them.Main conclusions: Future biodiversity patterns are reported here for the first time in the Chilean Mediterranean Region. Our findings enhance the importance of the current protected areas to harbour this future variation, despite their reduced number and size along the region.