MSP4BIO Deliverable 3.3: Guidance for including Climate Change scenarios in protection and prioritization strategies for Marine Protected Areas development

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are designated zones intended to conserve marine ecosystems, safeguard biodiversity, and sustain the yields of nearby artisanal fisheries, while also contributing to job creation and supporting marine economies. However, the growing impacts of climate change pose significant new challenges to the effectiveness of MPAs. Climate change will affect all aspects of marine life through warming (including extreme events such as heat waves), acidification, deoxygenation, changes in salinity, circulation shifts (and associated changes in the transport of marine organisms), sea-level rise, and more. Therefore, it is imperative that modern MPA management fully incorporates climate change considerations. The purpose of this guidance is to provide an original framework for MPA managers and modelers to assess the vulnerability of marine species and ecosystems to climate-related stressors. Vulnerability assessment is a key component of climate-smart management because the responses of marine organisms and ecosystems to climate-induced changes are neither straightforward nor linear. These responses depend on each species’ sensitivity, resistance, and adaptive capacity to single or combined stressors. In practice, some species may survive while others may disappear or even become invasive. Depending on the trophic role of the affected species, the ecosystem may undergo an abrupt shift to an alternative state—with consequent changes in ecosystem services—or it may exhibit resilience. This guidance is designed to be accessible to all users and to be comprehensive, versatile, and easy to apply. It follows a bottom-up approach: starting from management concerns, then assessing species- and area-specific vulnerabilities, and finally providing prioritization criteria for use by managers and modelers.