Representation of Threatened Biodiversity in Protected Areas and Identification of Complementary Areas for Their Conservation: Plethodontid Salamanders in Mexico

Abstract

Protected areas (PAs) have been the most important conservation instrument worldwide and are reaching the coverage percentage suggested internationally (17%), but with the risk of not being ecologically representative, which is particularly concerning for threatened species. Using a database of records from museums, literature, and our fieldwork, we evaluated the representation of 132 plethodontid salamander species, a highly threatened group, in the PAs of Mexico. We assessed the importance of PAs, according to the type of governance, to represent the salamander species diversity, estimating the proportion of suitable habitat within PAs where salamanders occur and detecting potential areas to protect threatened species that are outside of PAs. Approximately 40% of plethodontid species, including threatened species, have not been recorded in PAs. A set of federal PAs harbor the greatest number of species, while state, community, and private PAs have different species composition and a high complementariness to federal areas. In 82% of PAs with plethodontid records, suitable habitat covers more than half of their extent. To protect the 36 threatened plethodontid species that have not been recorded in any PA, we detected 26 potential sites, as well as 12 close and suitable established PAs, to complement the protection of threatened species. Different types of governance of PAs are highly complementary to protect threatened species, but not all PAs seem to have the proper conditions for their survival.

Selva Zoque, Mexico: an important Mesoamerican tropical region for reptile species diversity and conservation

“…These could include: 1) ecological restoration (Smith et al 2015) to facilitate the recovery of the reptile communities over time, 2) the protection of vegetation remnants (Pulsford et al 2017) that can harbor important components of overall species diversity, and 3) protection of buffer zones around water bodies (Semlitsch and Bodie 2003) that maintain populations of several species, and also constitute biological corridors (Burbrink et al 1999). Finally, the protection of Uxpanapa portion of Selva Zoque can contribute to the connection of natural protected areas of different governance types in the western (community protected areas of the Chimalapas, in Oaxaca) and eastern (federal protected area El Ocote, in Chiapas) of Selva Zoque (García-Bañuelos et al 2019). This idea fits completely with the objective of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, an interna- tional initiative that aims to maintain biological diversity, decrease habitat fragmentation, improve the connectivity of the landscapes and of the ecosystems in Mesoamerica and to impulse social and economic development (Miller et al 2001).…”

Does Protection Really Matter? A Case Study from Central European Oak Forests

“…On the one hand, our results suggest that the fact of establishing protection does not ensure a favourable state of conservation of forest communities. On the other hand, well-preserved forests with a high degree of naturalness can also be expected outside PAs and hence they may become an important target for nature protection in the future [6,10,53]. It may also mean, that the current conservation status of forest communities assessed based on their cover, continuity in the landscape and role in provisioning ecosystem services, e.g., [4,5] should be treated with caution and may require an update, based on direct field research on their species composition.…”

“…However, the relations between the management of PAs and the effectiveness of protection reflected by the decline in loss of biodiversity have been still poorly recognized [8]. According to the recent studies, the number and surface of PAs worldwide appear to be insufficient for the protection of animal populations [8][9][10][11], just as they do not always reduce the destruction of habitats [12], despite the fact PAs are often established in places of very low economic potential [13]. On the other hand, it is assumed that the PAs network is efficient when it comes to the protection of forest communities, at least in terms of protecting their already existing area [8,14] and is positively correlated with the date of establishment of PA [15].…”

A Salamander tale: Relative abundance, morphometrics and microhabitat of the critically endangered Mexican salamander Pseudoeurycea robertsi (Taylor, 1939)

“…Fifty-one percent of Mexican amphibian species are at risk of extinction due to anthropogenic factors (NOM-059, SEMARNAT 2019) and plethodontids are especially vulnerable because many species occur only in small ranges, with isolated and fragmented populations and require very specific microhabitat characteristics (Wake and Lynch 1976;Wake 1987;IUCN 2020). According to the IUCN (2020), 97% of Mexican plethodontid species are in a risk category, with 44 species Endangered and 49 species Critically Endangered, placing Mexico as the country with the highest number of threatened plethodontid species (García-Bañuelos 2019;IUCN 2020). Moreover, 81% of the species of this group are endemic to Mexico (Frost 2019;AmphibiaWeb 2020).…”