Mapping climate adaptation corridors for biodiversity—A regional-scale case study in Central America

high-priority corridors were generally more protected, forested, and distributed across wider elevational gradients and more KBAs, and they also generally linked larger lowland protected areas to end nodes that were larger, more protected, and more variable in terms of elevation. Discussion Potential for climate change refugia in neotropical mountainous landscapes This study represents one of the few regional-scale connectivity analyses in Central America and is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to prioritize potential climate adaptation corridors across elevational gradients throughout the region based on ecological characteristics and conservation status. We identified a total of 2375 potential climate adaptation corridors linking lowland pro- tected areas (� 5 km2) to high-elevation, contiguous forest patches (� 5 km2). Of these, 160 were deemed high-priority corridors owing to their greater protection, intact vegetation, wide Fig 4. Climate adaptation corridor priority index values. Country boundaries are public domain and were obtained from Natural Earth (50m- admin-0-countries-2) before clipping to our study area (https://www.naturalearthdata.com/). Lowland protected areas are polygons � 5 km2 and � 500 m elevation from the World Database on Protected Areas [37]. Highland target areas are patches (� 5 km2) of upper-montane (� 1500 m elevation) contiguous forest with medium or high Forest Landscape Integrity Index values [47]. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0304756.g004 PLOS ONE Mapping climate adaptation corridors for biodiversity

PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0304756 May 31, 2024 11 / 19