Reserves or protective areas can help with the long-term conservation of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services. However, as climate change alters the suitability of previously optimal habitats, and leads to species range shifts, reserves that are spatially flexible may be increasingly favourable. But reserve expansion is often limited by budget constraints, and selling of suboptimal reserve area can similarly be limited due to both high associated costs and potential negative ecological consequences.

Charlotte Gerling from the Brandenburg University of Technology, Germany, and colleagues from Germany and Australia investigated the economic implications of flexible reserve design, considering contrasting policies that prohibit or allow resale of reserve land. Using a conceptual climate–ecological–economic model, they show that resale flexibility is particularly beneficial under conditions of low funding, but its value decreases with increasing interest rates. The ability to resell also benefits highly mobile species under climate change, and while preventing resale improves habitat permanence mainly for expanding habitats, allowing resale provides advantages for habitats that become increasingly rare.

保护区或保护区有助于长期保护生物多样性和相关生态系统服务。然而，随着气候变化改变了以前最佳栖息地的适宜性，并导致物种范围发生变化，空间灵活的保护区可能越来越有利。但保护区的扩张往往受到预算限制，由于高昂的相关成本和潜在的负面生态后果，次优保护区的出售同样会受到限制。

德国勃兰登堡理工大学的 Charlotte Gerling 以及来自德国和澳大利亚的同事研究了灵活储备设计的经济影响，考虑了禁止或允许转售储备土地的对比政策。他们使用概念性的气候-生态-经济模型表明，在资金不足的情况下，转售灵活性特别有利，但其价值会随着利率的上升而降低。转售的能力也有利于气候变化下高度流动性的物种，虽然防止转售可以提高栖息地的持久性，主要是为了扩大栖息地，但允许转售为变得越来越稀有的栖息地提供了优势。