The climatic risk of Amazonian protected areas is driven by climate velocity until 2050

analogs using forward velocity, first across the entire Brazilian Amazon incorporating defores- tation scenarios, and then focusing on the edge of the PA network. However, the variation in magnitude of climate risks across PAs were not calculated, nor were the backward velocity cal- culated. More recently, forward velocity was associated with ecological niche models, but as one of several measures to identify priority areas for mammals [31]. In view of the high rates of exposure to climate change previously projected across the Ama- zon, and given its global importance as a hotspot for biodiversity [32], we ask: 1) What is the climatic risk to the network of PAs and ILs across the Amazon in terms of climate redistribu- tion that will occur until 2050 under the IPCC SSP245 scenario?; 2) Will the highest levels of climate risk be inside or outside of the PAs and ILs?; 3) Will the climate risk levels be higher in ILs or PAs? We work with the hypotheses that: the Amazon biome will be exposed to high rates of forward and backward velocities and will have a large area without climatic analogs; however, significant differences in climate risk between PAs, ILs and UAs, will be found. These differences are expected to infer different ecological implications across Pas, ILs and UAs, and consequently necessitate the implementation of different conservation strategies across the Amazon. Material and methods Study area We used the biogeographic boundary outlined by the Amazon Network of Georeferenced

Socio-Environmental Information [33] (RAISG, September 2020, http://raisg.socioambiental. org/) (S1 Fig) to define the study region of the Amazon. This region covers approximately 7 million square kilometers and is characterized by a high diversity of ecoregions (53) [34]. The area has predominantly low topographical diversity, with some isolated areas of elevations dis- tributed across eight countries (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela) and one French territory (French Guiana). To define the network of protected areas (PAs) and Indigenous Lands (ILs), we used spatial data from World Database on Pro- tected Areas (WDPA, September 2020, https://www.protectedplanet.net) [35]. This database includes terrestrial and marine PAs administered by national, regional, or international enti- ties, representing an ecologically based protection system for all countries throughout the world. We considered all terrestrial PAs across the Amazon, totaling 837 PAs covering 3,111,929 km2. We excluded PAs defined by international entities such as RAMSAR sites, bio- sphere reserves, and world heritage sites. Overall, PAs and ILs cover about 44.8% of the study area, of which 42.7% are ILs. Climate data We used temperature and precipitation data from WorldClim, a repository that provides spa- tially interpolated monthly climate data for global land areas at a high spatial resolution (approximately 1x1 km) [36]. To apply the climate velocity metric and make inferences about

the spatial distribution of living organisms [29, 37], we used a 10x10 km resample provided by WorldClim. At this scale, the climate is determined by factors ranging from large-scale conti- nental circulation patterns to the local variability of the terrain, which is fundamental for our analysis. We selected mean annual temperature (Bio1) and annual precipitation (Bio12) as the bioclimatic variables because they represent biologically relevant annual trends. Mean annual temperature is an important indicator variable for a set of other temperature-based metrics [38] and produces projections with relatively lower levels of uncertainty compared to precipi- tation [39]. Total annual precipitation on the other hand, is crucial for understanding the func- tioning of the Amazon ecosystem [40]. The current climatic conditions were based on the PLOS ONE Amazonian protected areas and climate velocity PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0286457 June 22, 2023 4 / 14