Improving the Key Biodiversity Areas Approach for Effective Conservation Planning

Knight, Andrew T.; Smith, Robert J.; Cowling, Richard M.; Desmet, Philip; Faith, Daniel P.; Ferrier, Simon; Gelderblom, Caroline; Grantham, Hedley S.; Lombard, Amanda T.; Maze, Kristal; Nel, Jeanne; Parrish, Jeffrey D.; Pence, Genevieve Q. K.; Possingham, Hugh P.; Reyers, Belinda; Rouget, Mathieu; Roux, Dirk J.; Wilson, Kerrie A.

doi:10.1641/b570309

Cited by 65 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…In this sense, Araújo, Williams & Fuller (2002) showed how the probability of persistence increases if reserve selection algorithms maximize the probability of the current occurrence instead of using a hypothetical niche model. With actual distributions we focused the efforts on identifying the more suitable areas for attaining persistence and optimizing the use of the scarce resources intended for conservation purposes (Knight et al, 2007) in conservation areas under current landuse, at least if they remain stable.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Addressing longitudinal connectivity in the systematic conservation planning of fresh waters

et al. 2010

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Summary 1. Freshwater conservation has received less attention than its terrestrial or marine counterparts. Given the accelerated rate of change and intensive human use that freshwater ecosystems are submitted to, it is urgent to focus more attention on fresh waters. Existing conservation planning tools – such as Marxan – need to be modified to account for the special nature of these systems. Connectivity plays a key role in freshwater ecosystems. Threats are mediated along river corridors, and the condition of the entire catchment influences river biodiversity downstream. This needs to be considered in conservation planning. 2. The probabilities of occurrence of nine native freshwater fish species in a Mediterranean river basin, obtained from Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines‐ Generalized Linear Model (MARS‐GLM) models, were used as features to develop spatial conservation priorities. The priorities accounted for complementarity and spatial design issues. 3. To deal with the connected nature of rivers, we modified Marxan’s boundary length penalty, avoiding the selection of isolated planning units and forcing the inclusion of closer upstream areas. We introduced ‘virtual boundaries’ between non‐headwater stream segments and added distance‐weighted penalties to the overall connectivity cost (CP) when stream segments upstream of the selected planning units are not selected. 4. This approach to prioritising connectivity is concordant with ecological theory, as it considers the natural and roughly exponential decay of upstream influences with distance. It accounts for the natural capacity of rivers to mitigate impacts when designing reserves. When connectivity was not emphasised, Marxan prioritised natural corridors for longitudinal movements. In contrast, whole sub‐basins were prioritised when connectivity was emphasised. Changing the relative emphasis on connectivity substantially changed the spatial prioritisation; our conservation investment could move from one basin to another. 5. Our novel approach to dealing with directional connectivity enables managers of freshwater systems to set ecologically meaningful spatial conservation priorities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Systematic conservation planning work tries to attain biodiversity conservation goals by identifying important areas where conservation efforts should be focused (priority areas hereafter) to facilitate the effective use of the limited resources intended for conservation issues (Knight et al, 2007).…”

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confidence: 99%

Addressing longitudinal connectivity in the systematic conservation planning of fresh waters

et al. 2010

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“…That is always the case in an opportunistic designation process limited by economical, cultural, political and scientific constraints, and one which builds on already existing national networks of protected areas (Knight and Cowling 2007). In many countries Natura 2000 has been largely based on existing protected areas (European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity 2005).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On a global scale no concerted action plan exists to nominate conservation areas, despite repeated calls for international coordination (Brooks et al 2006;Knight et al 2007;Mace et al 2000) and available tools for conservation prioritization (Moilanen et al 2009;Schmeller et al 2008b). The main common strategy has been to designate conservation areas for species listed as threatened -so called "Red List species" (Rodrigues et al 2004a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Mind the gap!” – How well does Natura 2000 cover species of European interest?

Gruber¹,

Evans²,

Henle³

et al. 2012

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Setting aside protected areas is widely recognized as one of the most effective measures to prevent species from extinction. Accordingly, there has been a tremendous effort by governments worldwide to establish protected areas, resulting in over 100,000 sites, which are set aside, to achieve the 10% target proposed at the Fourth World Park Congress in 1992 in Caracas. The main effort of the European Union to achieve this target is the Natura 2000 network of protected areas, comprising over 25,000 sites representing 18% of the area of the 27 Member States of the European Union. The designation of Natura 2000 sites was based on species and habitats listed in the Annexes of the Habitats and Birds Directive. The effectiveness of the selection process and the resulting Natura 2000 network has often been questioned as each country made its designations largely independently and in most cases without considering the theories of optimal REsEARCH ARtiClE Launched to accelerate biodiversity conservation A peer-reviewed open-access journalBernd Gruber et al. / Nature Conservation 3: 45-63 (2012) 46 reserve site selection. However, the effectiveness of the selection process and the Natura 2000 network has never been explicitly analysed at the European scale. Here we present such an analysis focusing on the representation of Annex II species of the Habitats Directive in the Natura 2000 network relative to a random allocation of species to sites. Our results show that the network is effective in covering target species and minimizing the number of gap species (i.e. species not represented in a single site of the Natura 2000 network). We demonstrate that the representation is uneven among species. Some species are overrepresented and many species are only represented in a low number of sites. We show that this is mainly due to differing patterns in species ranges, as wide-spread species are inevitably represented in many sites, but narrow ranged species are often covered only by a small number of sites in a particular area. Finally, we propose a representation index that detects species that are underrepresented and could be used to direct future conservation efforts.

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“…The identification of priority areas where the conservation efforts should be focused on has traditionally been based on methods which used rarity or species richness as a measure of their relative contribution to the global target (Knight et al, 2007, Darwall & Vié, 2005Eken et al, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying priority sites for the conservation of freshwater fish biodiversity in a Mediterranean basin with a high degree of threatened endemics

2008

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Improving the Key Biodiversity Areas Approach for Effective Conservation Planning

Cited by 65 publications

References 35 publications

Addressing longitudinal connectivity in the systematic conservation planning of fresh waters

Addressing longitudinal connectivity in the systematic conservation planning of fresh waters

“Mind the gap!” – How well does Natura 2000 cover species of European interest?

Identifying priority sites for the conservation of freshwater fish biodiversity in a Mediterranean basin with a high degree of threatened endemics

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