Effects of climate and land‐cover change on the conservation status of gibbons

Species shift their distribution in response to climate and land‐cover change, which may result in a spatial mismatch between currently protected areas (PAs) and priority conservation areas (PCAs). We examined the effects of climate and land‐cover change on potential range of gibbons and sought to identify PCAs that would conserve them effectively. We collected global gibbon occurrence points and modeled (ecological niche model) their current and potential 2050s ranges under climate‐change and different land‐cover‐change scenarios. We examined change in range and PA coverage between the current and future ranges of each gibbon species. We applied spatial conservation prioritization to identify the top 30% PCAs for each species. We then determined how much of the PCAs are conserved in each country within the global range of gibbons. On average, 31% (SD 22) of each species’ current range was covered in PAs. PA coverage of the current range of 9 species was