From the southeast Qinghai-Tibetan plateau to south China: Climate-proofing globally important landscapes for Galliformes protection

• Innovative insights into global Galliformes conservation. • Critical conservation gaps with <10 % of key landscapes protected, highlighting urgent need for PA expansion. • Significant climate change impacts on species ranges and biodiversity patterns, necessitating adaptive conservation strategies. • Offers science-based recommendations for optimizing PA networks. The world faces unprecedented species declines. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) adopted in 2022 outlines long-term goals to reduce extinction risk by 2050 and sets interim targets for 2030 to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. China, hosting a large number of species on its national Red List (1,050 vertebrate species) and the global threatened species on IUCN Red List (1,822), is critical to achieving KMGBF Goal A. To effectively reduce extinction risk for China’s species, prioritizing key landscapes and conservation gaps in existing protected areas (PAs) is critical for species diversity and ecosystem integrity under climate change, while safeguarding functional and phylogenetic diversity essential for ecosystem stability and evolutionary history. Focusing on Galliformes — a culturally and ecologically significant group — we assessed conservation priorities for 23 threatened and endemic species. We analyzed taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity across 50 km × 50 km grids, identified key landscapes, and evaluated PAs coverage under current and future climate change by their overlap with National Nature Reserves (NNRs). Our findings reveal that only ∼6 % of areas hosting threatened and endemic Galliformes diversity are currently covered by NNRs, with the most biodiverse regions receiving coverages of 5.82 %, 6.11 %, and 3.63 % for different diversity indexes. Climate change projections indicate a potential range shift towards higher elevations for these species. Key landscapes are concentrated in southeastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, Qinling, Wuling, Nanling-Wuyi mountain ranges, Taiwan, and Hainan. Alarmingly, less than 10 % of current and future priority landscapes are protected, highlighting substantial opportunities for PA network expansion in China. Integrating functional and phylogenetic diversity with taxonomic diversity is essential to safeguard ecosystem resilience and evolutionary history. This study provides critical insights for broader conservation strategies, which will contribute to global efforts to achieve the goals and targets of the KMGBF.