Neotropical results from SPARC: Where in the world should we put conservation for climate change?
Derek Corcoran1, Pablo Marquet1
1Catholic University of Chile, Santiago, Chile
A regional assessment team has been analysing species and ecosystem movements for the Neotropics as part of the pan-tropical SPARC project. The fundamental question we address is where protected areas and other conservation measures should be located to account for Species on the Move. We use tools including velocity of climate change, global ecosystem models, species distribution/ecological niche models and Generalized Dissimilarity Modeling to show that locations can be identified that maximize the number of Species on the Move represented in area-based conservation. We use spatial planning algorithms, including Network Flow and a quadratic derivation of Network Flow, to create spatial plans that minimize area requirements of protecting Species on the Move. We will present continental overview results as well as the results of several focal region case studies.