Amount Of Protected Area Research Articles

Predicting the future of threatened birds from a Neotropical ecotone area.

Climate change affects ecosystems in different ways. These effects are particularly worrying in the Neotropical region, where species are most vulnerable to these changes because they live closer to their thermal safety limits. Thus, establishing conservation priorities, particularly for the definition of protected areas (PAs), is a priority. However, some PA systems within the Neotropics are ineffective even under the present environmental conditions. Here, we test the effectiveness of a PA system, within an ecotone in northern Brazil, in protecting 24 endangered bird species under current and future (RCP8.5) climatic scenarios. We used species distribution modeling and dispersal corridor modeling to describe the priority areas for conservation of these species. Our results indicate that several threatened bird taxa are and will potentially be protected (i.e., occur within PAs). Nonetheless, the amount of protected area is insufficient to maintain the species in the ecotone. Moreover, most taxa will probably present drastic declines in their range sizes; some are even predicted to go globally extinct soon. Thus, we highlight the location of a potentially effective system of dispersal corridors that connects PAs in the ecotone. We reinforce the need to implement public policies and raise public awareness to maintain PAs and mitigate anthropogenic effects within them, corridors, and adjacent areas, aiming to conserve the richness and diversity of these already threatened species.

Testing the importance of harvest refuges for phenotypic rescue of trophy‐hunted populations

Abstract Sustainable exploitation must minimize its impact on the ecology and evolution of exploited wildlife. Intense phenotype‐based selective harvests can induce evolutionary change. Refuges could mitigate those evolutionary effects if individuals not subject to selective hunting in harvest refuges migrated and reproduced in hunted areas. The role of harvest refuges on phenotypic rescue of trophy‐hunted species, however, has rarely been tested. We investigated spatial and temporal variation in the effect of refuges on horn size and age at harvest in bighorn sheep Ovis canadensis. We analysed data on 5,826 males harvested over 39 years in Alberta, Canada. Horn length, a trait targeted by hunters, and age at harvest increased with the amount of protected areas 5–40 km around each kill. Horn base circumference, however, was independent of proximity to refuges. The number of males harvested increased during the last 10 days of the hunting season in late October, corresponding to the timing of bighorn male breeding migrations. Males shot during those 10 days were on average 17% closer to a refuge than males shot earlier in the season. Apparently, some large males exit refuges late in the hunting season, are shot, and cannot contribute to rescue. Uncertainty remains about the proportion of males exiting refuges after the hunting season and how many survive to reproduce. Synthesis and applications. Harvest refuges are unlikely to rescue hunted populations of bighorn sheep in Alberta, because some males exiting refuges are at risk of harvest before they mate. For phenotypic rescue to be effective, unselected males must reproduce before they are shot. Closing the hunting season 10 days earlier would increase survival of unselected rams exiting refuges.

Assessing the Impacts of Urbanization on Sex Ratios of Painted Turtles (Chrysemys picta)

Turtles are particularly susceptible to the negative impacts of urbanization due to low mobility and a life history strategy emphasizing long generation times and high adult survival. In addition to declines directly through habitat loss, urbanization has been hypothesized to limit populations of aquatic turtles through changes in population structure, as adult females are disproportionally killed on and near roads, leading to male-biased populations, which can lead to population declines or local extirpations. The purpose of this study was to better understand how urbanization impacts the sex ratios of painted turtles (Chrysemys picta) in an urban ecosystem, as empirical results linking male-biased turtle populations to roads and urbanization are mixed. Using eight years of trapping data from a long-term monitoring program in a suburb of Chicago, IL, USA, we report one of the most male-biased populations ( x ¯ = 75% male) of turtles in the USA, consistent with prevailing road mortality hypotheses. However, we found no evidence that male-biased populations were related to road density or the amount of protected area around a sampling location and found that impervious surface (a metric of urbanization) was weakly related to less male-biased populations. Our results highlight the importance of replicating ecological studies across space and time and the difficulty in assessing population structure in aquatic turtles. We suggest that active conservation measures may be warranted for the continued persistence of urban turtle populations.

Value of protected areas to avian persistence across 20 years of climate and land-use change.

Establishing protected areas, where human activities and land cover changes are restricted, is among the most widely used strategies for biodiversity conservation. This practice is based on the assumption that protected areas buffer species from processes that drive extinction. However, protected areas can maintain biodiversity in the face of climate change and subsequent shifts in distributions have been questioned. We evaluated the degree to which protected areas influenced colonization and extinction patterns of 97 avian species over 20 years in the northeastern United States. We fitted single-visit dynamic occupancy models to data from Breeding Bird Atlases to quantify the magnitude of the effect of drivers of local colonization and extinction (e.g., climate, land cover, and amount of protected area) in heterogeneous landscapes that varied in the amount of area under protection. Colonization and extinction probabilities improved as the amount of protected area increased, but these effects were conditional on landscape context and species characteristics. In this forest-dominated region, benefits of additional land protection were greatest when both forest cover in a grid square and amount of protected area in neighboring grid squares were low. Effects did not vary with species' migratory habit or conservation status. Increasing the amounts of land protection benefitted the range margins species but not the core range species. The greatest improvements in colonization and extinction rates accrued for forest birds relative to open-habitat or generalist species. Overall, protected areas stemmed extinction more than they promoted colonization. Our results indicate that land protection remains a viable conservation strategy despite changing habitat and climate, as protected areas both reduce the risk of local extinction and facilitate movement into new areas. Our findings suggest conservation in the face of climate change favors creation of new protected areas over enlarging existing ones as the optimal strategy to reduce extinction and provide stepping stones for the greatest number of species.

Gaps in biodiversity occurrence information may hamper the achievement of international biodiversity targets: insights from a cross-taxon analysis

SUMMARYSpecies distribution data are critical information sources when it comes to implementing the multiple Aichi Targets set by the international Convention on Biological Diversity. Although there have been international-scale efforts to aggregate distribution data, the magnitudes and locations of the gaps in biodiversity knowledge remain unclear. In this study, we use a large database, including over 200 000 species occurrence records, to identify knowledge gaps in biodiversity inventories for nine animal taxa in a Mediterranean biodiversity hotspot. Spatial modelling methods were employed to relate the completeness of inventories to population, road and protected area density. The completeness of faunistic inventories was correlated with the amount of protected areas, roads and population density. Despite more than 200 years of faunistic sampling, knowledge of the distributions of most animal taxa is still limited, especially for invertebrates. As the window of opportunity for achieving Aichi Targets 11 and 19 begins to close, means of filling such knowledge gaps are required. We argue that a combination of quantitative tools and citizen science data collection programmes may help inform conservation decisions.

Salvage logging following fires can minimize boreal caribou habitat loss while maintaining forest quotas: An example of compensatory cumulative effects

Protected area networks are the dominant conservation approach that is used worldwide for protecting biodiversity. Conservation planning in managed forests, however, presents challenges when endangered species use old-growth forests targeted by the forest industry for timber supply. In many ecosystems, this challenge is further complicated by the occurrence of natural disturbance events that disrupt forest attributes at multiple scales. Using spatially explicit landscape simulation experiments, we gather insights into how these large scale, multifaceted processes (fire risk, timber harvesting and the amount of protected area) influenced both the persistence of the threatened boreal caribou and the level of timber supply in the boreal forest of eastern Canada. Our result showed that failure to account explicitly and a priori for fire risk in the calculation of timber supply led to an overestimation of timber harvest volume, which in turn led to rates of cumulative disturbances that threatened both the long-term persistence of boreal caribou and the sustainability of the timber supply itself. Salvage logging, however, allowed some compensatory cumulative effects. It minimised the reductions of timber supply within a range of ∼10% while reducing the negative impact of cumulative disturbances caused by fire and logging on caribou. With the global increase of the human footprint on forest ecosystems, our approach and results provide useful tools and insights for managers to resolve what often appear as lose–lose situation between the persistence of species at risk and timber harvest in other forest ecosystems. These tools contribute to bridge the gap between conservation and forest management, two disciplines that remain too often disconnected in practice.

Land protection and timber harvesting along productivity and diversity gradients in the Northern Rocky Mountains

Understanding the complex and reciprocal ways in which ecosystem functions (such as productivity) and biodiversity interact may provide important insights into sustaining ecosystem services and protecting species diversity. Despite years of research, observed relationships between productivity and biodiversity have been varied and hypotheses explaining patterns are diverse and equivocal. The ways in which patterns of productivity‐biodiversity relationships can inform conservation may depend on understanding how gradients in human land use map onto gradients of productivity and biodiversity. Here, we used diverse publicly available spatial datasets on ecosystem productivity, tree diversity, climate, and land cover to explore two broad questions in ecoregions of Montana: (1) what is the relationship between productivity and tree diversity and (2) are land use gradients (from timber harvesting to wilderness protection) related to gradients of productivity and diversity? We also investigated the possible climatic and topographic drivers of these ecological and anthropogenic patterns. We found the most productive ecoregions support greater numbers of tree species, which appears to be influenced by precipitation but not temperature gradients. The most productive and diverse ecoregions included greater amounts of timber harvesting disturbance and associated road densities. The amount of protected area within ecoregions was highest at intermediate levels of productivity and diversity and was strongly related to mean elevation of ecoregions. Our results suggest that climate‐influenced productivity gradients may influence patterns of biodiversity and are related to patterns in human land use. Further, given the existing conditions and current distribution of protected areas, we recommend that the most altered productive and diverse ecoregions may offer opportunities both for additional protection and for holistic restoration programs.

Red List reveals conservation pay-offs

Summary Efforts to protect species are paying off amid otherwise widespread declines. Nigel Williams reports

Sustainable energy planning with efficient office buildings and cogeneration plants in Frankfurt am Main.

Sustainable development of a city not only is determined through the amount of protected areas, but it is also an important task to integrate sustainable development in urban energy planning. In the last 10 years, many new areas for offices and residential buildings have been developed in Frankfurt am Main. In this context, the municipality has taken over a new role as organizer for the integrated energy planning. This article gives an overview of the achievements.

PATTERNS AND CAUSES OF SPECIES ENDANGERMENT IN CANADA

Few studies have addressed patterns and causes of species endangerment at different resolutions and geographical extents. Using newly developed remote sensing and species distribution data sets, we examined the influence of both natural and anthropogenic factors on the density of terrestrial endangered species in Canada at two spatial scales. The first was at a national extent and the second was within a region of Canada (the mixed wood plains) where there are particularly large numbers of endangered species. We also examined the distribution of protected areas throughout Canada to determine their capacity to shelter endangered species. Land use, which is measured by 1‐km resolution satellite data, is a strong predictor of endangered species densities at both scales of analysis. Land use integrates information on habitat loss to agriculture and land use intensity, an index of agricultural pollution. The amount of protected area in a region is unrelated to endangered species numbers except to the extent that areas with the most endangered species are, at best, nearly devoid of protected area. Newly legislated protections for endangered species are unlikely to bring much improvement to this conservation dilemma. Canada's endangered species legislation promotes cooperative conservation activities in areas where species endangerment is most pronounced but does little to protect remaining habitat.