Current Greek Protected Areas Fail to Fully Capture Shifting Endemism Hotspots Under Future Climate and Land-Use Change

Abstract

In the Anthropocene, conservation planning must adapt to rapid environmental changes driving the global biodiversity crisis. The impacts of climate and land-use change are particularly severe in biodiversity hotspots like the Mediterranean Basin, where unique taxa and ecosystems are increasingly at risk. To address these challenges, we conducted a forward-looking conservation prioritization analysis in Peloponnese, Greece, a regional endemism center and key component of the Mediterranean biodiversity hotspot. Our aim was to map plant biodiversity conservation gaps and provide a case study for developing a cost-effective conservation strategy. We conducted a taxonomically and phylogenetically informed identification of endemism hotspots. Furthermore, we mapped persistent hotspots under multiple future scenarios of environmental change and assessed their coverage by protected and roadless areas. Our analysis revealed that endemism hotspots will likely shift geographically and diminish in extent over the coming decades. While key mountainous regions are expected to retain their hotspot status until the end of the century, our results indicate an overall endemism decline and a high likelihood of extinctions. Moreover, up to 46% of the persistent endemism hotspots are not covered by current protected areas, and less than 8% of those are within roadless areas. Our results highlight the need for a coordinated multi-dimensional strategy that should include the expansion of the current network of protected areas, the establishment of plant micro-reserves, and the translocation and reinforcement of populations of endemics. The identified conservation gaps represent regions of enduring resilience to environmental change, making them critical targets for long-term conservation planning.

Keywords: biodiversity conservation, endemism, land-use/land-cover change, Climate change, Natura 2000, roadless areas