Sustaining marine biodiversity under climate change: Spatial planning to maximise the future connectivity of the Baltic Sea marine protected area network

Climate change and anthropogenic disturbances cause major losses in biodiversity and threaten important ecosystem services.

Marine protected areas (MPAs) have become a key component of conservation and fisheries management to alleviate these pressures.

New, ambitious EU area targets for 30% MPA coverage by 2030, in combination with ongoing environmental change, require sophisticated spatial planning to achieve ecologically coherent MPA networks.

However, there is a substantial knowledge gap concerning how to design MPA networks that account for the distribution and connectivity of habitats under future scenarios of climate change.

We will develop models of future species distributions and seascape connectivity to assess the ecological coherence of the coastal Swedish Baltic Sea MPA network under climate change.

Specifically we aim to: 1) spatially quantify connectivity under projected scenarios of ocean temperature and salinity change, 2) evaluate how well the current MPA network protects biodiversity under future scenarios, and 3) analyse how the MPA network could be expanded and strengthened to maximise biodiversity in the future.

Results will be communicated to authorities and stakeholders to aid development of resilience to future change in the spatial planning strategy and to support biodiversity conservation and sustainable blue economy.