A freshwater conservation assessment of the Upper Mississippi River basin using a coarse‐ and fine‐filter approach

Abstract

1. We identified priority sites for freshwater conservation in the Upper Mississippi River (UMR) basin using a coarse-and fine-filter approach to defining biodiversity elements as building blocks. Fine-filter species included federally listed threatened and endangered, imperilled, declining, endemic, disjunct and wide-ranging species. We had species data for over 1300 individual occurrences of species and communities identified as fine-filter elements. The coarse-filter elements are ecosystems ('Aquatic Ecological Systems') defined using physical attributes of streams and lakes, and stratified to represent key zoogeographical and physiographical gradients. 2. We used relative ecosystem integrity, species population viability and expert opinion to generate an initial 'portfolio' of 600 freshwater areas of biodiversity significance representing the best examples of the species and ecosystem elements. Representation targets were met for all ecosystem types and for an average of 45% for species groups. 3. The application of a coarse-and fine-filter approach to identify biodiversity conservation priorities in the UMR demonstrates the contribution of each component -even in an area with relatively rich fine-filter data. For a large assessment area, data, even if plentiful, will be uneven, and community-level diversity is not catalogued. Thus, the coarse filter allows for greater confidence that a broad suite of species and key environmental gradients are captured in a conservation portfolio, while fine-filter data provide greater confidence that species of conservation and management interest are addressed adequately.

Incorporating climate change into systematic conservation planning

“…Second, improving connectivity can improve the ecological integrity of conservation areas, thereby enhancing the resilience of ecosystems to changes in disturbance regimes characteristic of climate change in many places. Even in the absence of climate change, connectivity is considered important to prevent isolation of populations and ecosystems, provide for species with large home ranges (e.g., wide-ranging carnivores), provide for access of species to different habitats to complete life cycles, to maintain ecological processes such as water flow (Khoury et al 2010), and to alleviate problems deriving from multiple meta-populations that are below viability thresholds (Hilty et al 2006). As a result, many regional assessments already consider the connectivity of conservation areas, albeit with varying degrees of sophistication.…”

“…Connectivity has longitudinal, lateral (e.g., rivers to floodplains), vertical (e.g., recharge of subterranean ground water) and temporal (e.g., (Williams et al 2005) changing habitat distributions through time) dimensions. In regional conservation, connectivity has most commonly focused on developing corridors between areas to accommodate animal movement (e.g., Bruinderink et al 2003;Fuller et al 2006), and aquatic connectivity for fish migrations (e.g., Schick and Lindley 2007;Khoury et al 2010). However, connectivity is also critical for the movement of water, sediment and nutrients, especially in marine and freshwater systems (Abrantes and Sheaves 2010;Beger et al 2010;Khoury et al 2010).…”

“…In regional conservation, connectivity has most commonly focused on developing corridors between areas to accommodate animal movement (e.g., Bruinderink et al 2003;Fuller et al 2006), and aquatic connectivity for fish migrations (e.g., Schick and Lindley 2007;Khoury et al 2010). However, connectivity is also critical for the movement of water, sediment and nutrients, especially in marine and freshwater systems (Abrantes and Sheaves 2010;Beger et al 2010;Khoury et al 2010). Temporal connectivity has not received the same attention as spatial connectivity, but is likely critical in the creation of climatic refugia, such as during prolonged drought periods (Klein et al 2009).…”

Bridging the gap between ‘planning’ and ‘doing’ for biodiversity conservation in freshwaters

“…Importantly, it is also a major consideration in partitioning the landscape into broad management zones (Abell, Allan & Lehner, 2007;Thieme et al, 2007;Nel et al, 2010). The second aspect warrants further discussion because it links the outputs of systematic conservation assessments with implementation (e.g., Khoury, Higgins & Weitzell, 2010). The second aspect warrants further discussion because it links the outputs of systematic conservation assessments with implementation (e.g., Khoury, Higgins & Weitzell, 2010).…”

Merging connectivity rules and large‐scale condition assessment improves conservation adequacy in river systems

“…Similar approaches – in which condition was either used as a pre‐processing step to filter out degraded areas or a post hoc analysis – have recently been carried out in North America, South America and South Africa (Thieme et al . ; Khoury, Higgins & Weitzell ; Nel et al . ).…”