BIODIVERSITY RESEARCH Incorporating dynamic distributions into spatial prioritization

Aim Species ’ distributions are generally treated as static for the purposes of pri-oritization, but many species such as migrants and nomads have distributions that shift over time. Decisions about priority actions for such species must account for this temporal variation, making planning for their conservation a complex problem. Here, we explore how dynamic distributions can be incorpo-rated into a spatial prioritization, and suggest approaches for prioritizing conservation action when knowledge of species ’ movements is uncertain. Location Australian rangelands, including the arid and semi-arid zones of central Australia and adjoining monsoonal tropics, although methods are appli-cable for any dynamic biodiversity feature. Methods We used the decision-support software MARXAN to explore the impact of temporal dynamics on spatial conservation planning for a suite of 42 highly mobile birds across the study region. We explored scenarios comparing a static representation of species ’ distributions with four methods of integrating tempora