Can Focal Species Planning for Landscape Connectivity Meet the Needs of South American Temperate Rainforest Endemics?

Abstract

Although reliance on ‘focal species’ for conservation planning has been criticized, it is often the most practicable approach available, and its use continues to increase. We, and other researchers, have suggested the chucao tapaculo (Scelorchilus rubecula Kittlitz) as a potentially useful focal species regarding landscape connectivity for a select group of endemic understory birds and mammals in the South American Temperate Rainforest (SATR) biome. Each of these species is a forest understory specialist that is potentially dispersal limited. Because knowledge about dispersal ability for the chucao is better than for any other vertebrate in the biome, it has also been suggested as a focal species for connectivity planning at larger-scales and for a larger suite of species. While we are confident that landscapes designed to meet the connectivity requirements of the chucao would be permeable to movement by most SATR vertebrates, we caution that large-scale applicability of design strategies based on local-scale movement studies for this bird requires close examination. In the context of regional-scale conservation networks, we argue that the connection/corridor, itself, should be designed to sustain a continuous viable (meta)population. In this paper we: (1) review the body of research on landscape connectivity for the chucao and other SATR understory-birds; (2) suggest some possible strategies for scaling-up corridor designs to function at larger spatial scales, by addressing (meta)population viability in addition to habitat permeability; and (3) critically evaluate the degree to which these designs may, and in many cases may not, meet the conservation needs of other vertebrates in the SATR biome.