Biodiversity in Mexico is threatened by Land Use/Cover Change (LUCC) and Climate
Change (CC). Identifying what sites will be most vulnerable to these threats can help to
prioritise conservation, mitigation and adaptation strategies and target limited resources.
Therefore, the aims of this study are 1) to identify the most vulnerable sites to LUCCs under
different socio-economic and CC scenarios, and 2) to assess the vulnerability of endemic and
threatened vertebrate species to establish prioritization strategies for biodiversity
conservation. Spatially explicit socio-economic scenarios were created at national and
subnational level (Chapter 3). National LUCC models were then developed using the
DINAMICA EGO software (Chapter 4). These models were run for three future time slices
(2020s, 2050s and 2080s) and two contrasting future climate and socio-economic scenarios
to determine biodiversity vulnerability (Chapter 5). Vulnerability was estimated by
quantifying the exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity to LUCC and CC. This
framework integrates national information about the priority sites of biodiversity
conservation and their future extent of natural covers under future socio-economic and
climate conditions. Finally, the vulnerability framework was also applied in a regional case-study
in three municipalities of southern Mexico (Chapter 6). Results reveal that temperate
forest is the most vulnerable ecosystem type in Mexico, followed by natural grasslands and
tropical evergreen forests. Agriculture is the driver of this threat, which is projected to
expand to feed an increasing population under dryer climatic conditions. More than 40% of
endemic and endangered mammals are in places ranking from medium to extremely high
vulnerability, followed by the 28% of the amphibians, 25% and 23% for reptiles and birds,
respectively. These vertebrates are principally distributed on temperate forests and tropical
dry forests. In the regional scale, rain-fed agriculture (RfA) and anthropogenic grasslands are
the principal LUCC drivers, threatening 31 species of endangered vertebrates. A local
strategy for creating corridors between patches close to rivers from the south to the north of
one municipality is supported as conservation priority for the regional biodiversity. This
research presents a novel approach for prioritising conservation strategies in highly
biodiverse countries using readily available data sources, demonstrated at different spatial
and temporal scales