Shifts in bird ranges and conservation priorities in China under climate change

increase species extinction risks [11–13]. In the context of conservation management, the range shift of each species may lead to a change in conservation priority areas [13]. On a world scale, studies have presented maps of changes in species distribution ranges (birds, amphibi- ans, and mammals) under future climate change scenarios [14, 15], and noted that biodiversity hotspots may move to high-latitudes. However, these world-scale studies have low spatial reso- lution and use polygon range data based on expert experience, that may lead to worse esti- mates of underlying environmental variables [16, 17]. Therefore, these results are difficult to use to guide the planning and management of protected areas in response to climate change at the country scale. Notably, regional or national-scale studies are still necessary because differ- ent countries have different species structures. In Europe, a study predicted that 431 breeding bird species may remain in only 72–89% of the current distribution range by 2099 [2]. The United Kingdom and Australia have also pub- lished national assessment reports on the biodiversity responses of species to climate change [18, 19]. However, China is one of 17 mega-diverse countries in the world, and the National Action Plan on Climate Change of China 2014–2020 did not mention the future climate impact on biodiversity [20]. In China, impacts of future climate change on the distribution of species have only been studied for a few species groups. Regionally, on the Tibetan Plateau, ungulates may experience

30%-50% range loss and 300-km poleward shifts on average by 2080 [21]. At the national scale, before the next century, 135 endemic or endangered species, including amphibians, rep- tiles, and mammals, may experience 50% habitat loss [22]. A study of 44 migratory waterbird species found that the conservation hotspots of these species would move northward by 2050 [23]. Moreover, the data sources and simulation methods used in the above studies are not uniform, making comparison difficult, and attention should not only paid to threatened and endemic species in order to understand the shifts of diversity and richness patterns [24]. Although birds are an important ecological indicator of climate [25], an overview of the full taxon of avian species in China has not been obtained. With limited budgets and various extinction risks for different species, planning an active conservation network in response to future climate change scenarios remains a major chal- lenge [26, 27]. To make planning more effective, convenient but powerful models based on multispecies distribution range data have been developed. For example, Pouzols et al. used the Zonation model to map the details of global protected areas needed by 2040 [28], and Levy and Ban used the Marxan model to incorporate climate change modeling into marine conser- vation [29]. Therefore, it is feasible to develop rigorous assessments and conservation plans, based on species range data. Range maps downloaded from the databases of IUCN Red List and Birdlife International

are a widely used data sources for biogeography research [30]. However, these range maps, based on the expert knowledge, may have more biases than maps based on occurrence data from species distribution models [16]. For conservation planning, citizen science has played an essential role to produce data with accuracy equal to or surpassing that of experts if the data is carefully verified and applied [31–34]. The occurrence data with the time sequence from citi- zen science projects have filled the gaps in continuous data to analyze the effects of climate change on species distributions, such as the changing migration patterns of birds in North America [35]. In China, where historical occurrence data are scarce and difficult to digitize [36], citizen science methods such as birdwatching have provided much more occurrence data than scientific papers, including for threatened and rare species [37]. These citizen science datasets have been widely and independently used in national-scale studies of China to explain issues such as the effects of climate change on biogeography and conservation planning for both individual species and multiple species [23, 36, 38, 39]. Although such data may show PLOS ONE Bird range changes call for innovative conservation in China PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240225 October 8, 2020 2 / 20 these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section. Competing interests: Beijing Jinglang Ecology and Techniques Co., LTD is the current employer of Ms. Yiyun Gu, but the employment relationship

was established after Ms. Gu completed all her research presented in this paper. Beijing Jinglang Ecology and Techniques Co., LTD does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.