Effectiveness of Protected Areas in Maintaining Plant Production

Abstract

Given the central importance of protected area systems in local, regional and global conservation strategies, it is vital that there is a good understanding of their effectiveness in maintaining ecological functioning. Here, we provide, to our knowledge, the first such global analysis, focusing on plant production, a “supporting” ecosystem function necessary for multiple other ecosystem services. We use data on the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) as a measure of variation in plant production in the core, boundary and surroundings of more than 1000 large protected areas over a 25 year period. Forested protected areas were higher (or similar), and those non-forested were lower (or similar), in NDVI than their surrounding areas, and these differences have been sustained. The differences from surrounding areas have increased for evergreen broadleaf forests and barren grounds, decreased for grasslands, and remained similar for deciduous forests, woodlands, and shrublands, reflecting different pressures on those surroundings. These results are consistent with protected areas being effective both in the representation and maintenance of plant production. However, widespread overall increases in NDVI during the study period suggest that plant production within the core of non-forested protected areas has become higher than it was in the surroundings of those areas in 1982, highlighting that whilst the distinctiveness of protected areas from their surroundings has persisted the nature of that difference has changed.

Applying Graph Theory to Design Networks of Protected Areas: Using Inter-Patch Distance for Regional Conservation Planning

“…As the effectiveness of NPAs to the maintenance of ecological processes has not been well documented, it is essential to comprehend the contribution of NPAs for biodiversity conservation (Tang et al 2011). The long-term persistence of species is a vital ecological process that must be evaluated into the NPAs through some approaches such as: connectivity or reserve selection (e.g.…”

“…ecosystems, species, populations), and the persistence of ecological/evolutionary processes (e.g. biotic interactions, natural disturbance and landscape connectivity) (Tang et al 2011). A promising initiative to enhance the long-term persistence of species is the effective implementation of networks of protected areas (henceforth NPAs).…”

Sistema para el Seguimiento del funcionamiento de ecosistemas en la Red de Parques Nacionales de España mediante Teledetección

“…De esta forma, los IVs han sido usados ampliamente como una aproximación a la caracterización de la dinámica de las ganancias de carbono para grandes extensiones de terreno (Alcaraz et al 2006, Paruelo et al 2001 permitiendo evaluaciones de paisajes, países, regiones o incluso el Planeta entero. En particular, en el ámbito del seguimiento de las áreas protegidas, estos índices se han manifestado muy útiles para detectar cambios de las Redes de Parques Nacionales (Alcaraz et al 2009), o para evaluar la eficiencia de éstas en el mantenimiento de funciones ecológicas (Tang et al 2011). Por otro lado, y puesto que la PPN representa la función ecosisté-mica sobre la que descansan el resto de funciones y procesos ecológicos, los IVs comienzan también a ser claves en la evaluaciones de servicios de los ecosistemas (Volante et al 2012, Cabello et al 2013).…”

Status of Nature Reserves in Inner Mongolia, China

“…They play an important role in mitigating the negative effects of external pressures on biodiversity [10,11]. Since 1872, when the United States of America established the world's first natural protected area (Yellowstone National Park), protected areas have been rapidly established and expanded in many countries.…”