Reserve Design Research Articles

Fisheries benefits of a marine protected area with endogenous fishing efforts – A bioeconomic analysis

The study assesses the conservation and fisheries benefits of the Blue Bay Marine Park in Mauritius. It addresses the question - are the higher catch rates near the Park a result of population spillovers or of reduced fishing effort in those waters due to site-specific attributes? There is no data on catches and fishing effort prior to the reserve's establishment; a bioeconomic model is used to separate the effects of spillover and effort redistribution on catch rates in waters next to the Marine Park. The area's fish populations are replicated using a dynamic age-structured model with a Beverton-Holt recruitment function, while fishing effort is predicted using a random utility model and Random Parameter Logit estimation. The bioeconomic model is characterised by two-way feedback loops between fish stocks and the geographic redistribution of fishing effort. A comparison of fish population, biomass, and catch rates in the fisheries with and without effort redistribution, suggests that the reduced fishing effort in waters near the Park, rather than spillover, is driving the increase in observed catch rates. Travel distance, variation in catch rates, depth of water and area status (lagoon vs. off-lagoon) explain the relocation of fishing effort away from the adjacent of the marine park. The study shows how site-specific characteristics affecting fisher behaviour are important in the design of marine reserves.

Landscape-level habitat management plan through geometric reserve design for critically endangered Hangul (Cervus hanglu hanglu).

Hangul (Cervus hanglu hanglu), the only red deer subspecies surviving in the Indian subcontinent, is of top conservation priority with global importance. Unfortunately, it has lost much of its historical distribution range, and it is now confined to Dachigam landscape within the Kashmir valley of India. The Government of India initiated a recovery plan in 2008 to augment their numbers through ex-situ conservation programs. However, it was necessary to identify potential hangul habitats in Kashmir valley for adopting landscape-level conservation planning for the species. Based on geometric aspects of reserve design, we modeled hangul habitat using an ensemble approach to identify hangul habitats. The present model indicates that the conifer and broadleaf mixed forests were the most suitable habitats. Only 9% of the total study landscape was found suitable for the species. We identified corridors among the suitable habitat blocks, which may be vital for the species' long-term genetic viability. We suggest reorganizing the existing management of Dachigam National Park (NP) following the landscape level and habitat block-level management planning based on the core principles of geometric reserve design. We recommend that the identified patch (PID-6) in the southern region of the landscape to be converted into a Conservation Reserve or merged with the Overa-Aru Wildlife Sanctuary. This habitat patch PID-6 may be a stepping stone habitat and vital for maintaining the species landscape connectivity and metapopulation dynamics.

Over- and Under-Voltage Containment Reserves for Droop-Based Primary Voltage Control of MTDC Grids

This paper proposes a comprehensive methodology for determining the converter droop settings to ensure the voltage security in multi-terminal direct current (MTDC) grid. The novelty lies in the introduction of the concept of over- and under-voltage containment reserves in analogy to the frequency containment reserves in AC systems. This not only gives a distinction of the contribution between the converters in rectifying and inverting modes, but also significantly facilitates the sizing of necessary amount of reserves within their available headroom capacity of power. In particular, the constraints of converters outages, converter rating, and DC voltage deviations are all taken into account in the design of reserves. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by a contingency power flow analysis algorithm and EMT simulations of a four-terminal MTDC grid.

Shift of potential natural vegetation against global climate change under historical, current and future scenarios

Potential natural vegetation (PNV), the final successional stage of vegetation, plays a key role in ecological restoration, the design of nature reserves, and development of agriculture and livestock production. Meteorological data from historical and current periods including the last inter-glacial (LIG), last glacial maximum (LGM), mid Holocene (MH) periods and the present day (PD), plus derived data from 2050 and 2070, in conjunction with the Comprehensive and Sequential Classification System (CSCS) model, were used to classify global PNV. The 42 classes of global PNV were regrouped into 10 groups to facilitate analysis of spatial changes. Finally, spatio-temporal patterns and successional processes of global PNV as well as the response to climate changes were analysed. Our study made the following five conclusions. (1) Only one missing class (IA1 frigid-extrarid frigid desert, alpine desert) arose in periods of LIG, MH, 2050, and 2070 for global PNV. (2) The frigid-arid groups were mainly distributed in higher latitudes and elevations, but temperate-humid groups and tropical-perhumid groups occurred in middle and low latitudes, respectively. Temperate zonal forest steppe, warm desert, savanna and tropical zonal forest steppe increased, while six other groups decreased. (3) The conversion from temperate zonal forest steppe to tundra and alpine steppe from LIG to LGM occupied the largest area, indicating a drastic shift in climate and the associated response of terrestrial vegetation sensitive to climate change. (4) The CSCS could be used to simulate the long-term succession of global PNV. (5) As a consequence of global warming, forests shifted to the northern hemisphere and Tibet, areas with much higher latitude and elevation. The PNV groups with greater shift distance revealed the more serious effects of global climate change on vegetation.

Constrained optimization of landscape indices in conservation planning to support ecological restoration in New Caledonia

AbstractCurbing habitat loss, reducing fragmentation and restoring connectivity are frequent concerns of conservation planning. In this respect, the incorporation of spatial constraints, fragmentation and connectivity indices into optimization procedures is an important challenge for improving decision support.Here we present a novel optimization approach developed to accurately represent a broad range of conservation planning questions with spatial constraints and landscape indices. Relying on constraint programming, a technique from artificial intelligence based on automatic reasoning, this approach provides both constraint satisfaction and optimality guarantees.We applied this approach in a real case study to support managers of the ‘Côte Oubliée – ‘Woen Vùù – Pwa Pereeù’ provincial park project, in the biodiversity hotspot of New Caledonia. Under budget, accessibility and equitable allocation constraints, we identified restorable areas optimal for reducing forest fragmentation and improving inter‐patch structural connectivity, respectively measured with the effective mesh size and the integral index of connectivity.Synthesis and applications. Our work contributes to more effective and policy‐relevant conservation planning by providing a spatially explicit and problem‐focused optimization approach. By allowing an exact representation of spatial constraints and landscape indices, it can address new questions and ensure whether the solutions will be socio‐economically feasible, through optimality and satisfiability guarantees. Our approach is generic and flexible, thus applicable to a wide range of conservation planning problems, such as ecological restoration planning, reserve or corridor design.

Advanced dynamic modeling study of fire and smoke of crude oil storage tanks

The combustion properties of large-scale crude oil pool fire have great significance for security design and firefighting of current crude oil reserves. Burning rate, flame shape and radiation intensity are the most important parameters for fire properties. The novelty of this study is that the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) is adopted to simulate pool fires in a tank farm. It does not only investigate and analyze heat radiation flux, but also the temperature difference rise and flame/smoke temperature contours behavior. This simulation is performed in order to predict the potentials of a large crude oil storage tank fire outbreak and the smoke temperature distribution that counters in and around the tank. These data are used in designing tank farms and applying the firefighting strategy. A super CPU with large RAM is used to operate the simulation program, to simulate one of the largest crude oil farms in the world. The model will be investigated for identifying the worst-case scenarios that might occur in a large crude oil tank. One of these scenarios might be fire outbreak in rim seal in one of the four storage tanks, where the fire is transferred to full surface fire. The model predicts the potential of tank fire outbreak, smoke tracing and both smoke/flame temperature that spreads at wind speed of 3 m/s, 9 m/s, 18 m/s in south-west direction. FDS model provides qualitative data that increase the level of safety, such as the minimum safe separation distances and the location of firefighters during the firefighting process. It also determines the most critical area, which is needed for water-cooling system. This study also tackles the duration after which human beings feel pain after being exposed to heat radiation.

DEPARTMENT OF GEOMORPHOLOGY AND PALEOGEOGRAPHY OF THE IVAN FRANKO NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF LVIV: STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT, ACHIEVEMENTS AND CHALLENGES

This year we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Department of Geomorphology (since 2000 – Geomorphology and Paleogeography) of the Faculty of Geography, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, formed on the basis of the existing Lviv school of geography, which possessed old traditions and scientific achievements in the research of relief, in particular, of its development and formation. On the occasion of the anniversary, the article attempts to analyze the main achievements of the Department over the 70-year period, to highlight the main stages of its development and to outline the new challenges facing the Department today. There is the “Engineering, ecological and regional geomorphology” scientific school successfully functioning at the Department. Within its borders, the “Paleogeography of the Pleistocene” research direction is rapidly developing with significant achievements recognized at the international level. Anthropogenic and dynamic geomorphology, historical and geographical research, and geomorphological mapping with the use of GIS and remote sensing have been intensively developed. Over the last decade, research on the environmental issues, including spatial planning and design of nature reserves and ecological networks, as well as the study of geoheritage, geotourism and geoeducation have been singled out into independent areas. Overall, there are four development stages of the Department: the first ‒ from its foundation (1950) till 1970, the second ‒ during 1971-1990, the third ‒ during 1990-2010, and the fourth ‒ from 2010 till present. For each of them, the main scientific and practical achievements of the Department are briefly analyzed. The most important event in the first stage was the launching of fundamental comprehensive regional research, including the Ukrainian Carpathians, under the supervision of P. Tsys; in the second one ‒ the development of regional and engineering-geomorphological research and the introduction of stationary and semi-stationary research of modern relief-forming processes for the first time in Ukraine; in the third one ‒ the formation of a research school of engineering, ecological and regional geomorphology and the rapid development of Pleistocene paleogeography, as well as of environmental research; in the fourth one ‒ active development of the “Engineering, Ecological and Regional Geomorphology” scientific school and of the “Pleistocene Paleogeography” research direction, as well as of the investigations related to geoheritage, geotourism and geoeducation. The main current challenges are outlined at the end of the article. Key words: geomorphology; paleogeography; stages of development; scientific school; research directions; research; achievements; challenges.

Landscape heterogeneity and habitat amount drive plant diversity in Amazonian canga ecosystems

Island Biogeography Theory and Habitat Amount Hypothesis postulate species richness and densities to increase with connectivity and habitat amount, while niche theory highlights the importance of environmental heterogeneity for species coexistence. Additional ecological niches in heterogeneous landscapes increase species richness and functional and phylogenetic diversity, but larger, less isolated habitats are expected to enlarge species densities by mass effects without effects on functional or phylogenetic diversity. We assessed the relative contribution of habitat amount, isolation and environmental heterogeneity on taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity of the particular canga vegetation, i.e., rupestrian savannas associated to banded ironstone outcrops from the Carajas Massif, Eastern Amazon. We sampled vegetation at 48 sampling points comprising different physiognomies from 5 canga patches. Diversity measures were modelled as response variables in linear mixed models, using non-collinear predictors of habitat amount, isolation and environmental heterogeneity. Diversity and species composition differed among canga physiognomies, indicating that environmental filters segregate canga plant metacommunity in physiognomy-specific species pools. Landscape roughness, a proxy for heterogeneity on the landscape level, increases species densities and functional richness. Additionally, habitat amount was positively associated with the degree of phylogenetic relatedness and functional diversity in communities. Our results suggest that configurational landscape heterogeneity increases the number of available ecological niches, while larger habitat amounts select for functionally and phylogenetically convergent species. These different underlying mechanisms need to be considered for management plans and reserve design for canga ecosystems, so that functional canga portions can be protected.

A network of grassroots reserves protects tropical river fish diversity.

Intensive fisheries have reduced fish biodiversity and abundance in aquatic ecosystems worldwide1-3. 'No-take' marine reserves have become a cornerstone of marine ecosystem-based fisheries management4-6, and their benefits for adjacent fisheries are maximized when reserve design fosters synergies among nearby reserves7,8. The applicability of this marine reserve network paradigm to riverine biodiversity and inland fisheries remains largely untested. Here we show that reserves created by 23 separate communities in Thailand's Salween basin have markedly increased fish richness, density, and biomass relative to adjacent areas. Moreover, key correlates of the success of protected areas in marine ecosystems-particularly reserve size and enforcement-predict differences in ecological benefits among riverine reserves. Occupying a central position in the network confers additional gains, underscoring the importance of connectivity within dendritic river systems. The emergence of network-based benefits is remarkable given that these reserves are young (less than 25 years old) and arose without formal coordination. Freshwater ecosystems are under-represented among the world's protected areas9, and our findings suggest that networks of small, community-based reserves offer a generalizable model for protecting biodiversity and augmenting fisheries as the world's rivers face unprecedented pressures10,11.

Biotic interactions govern the distribution of coexisting ungulates in the Arctic Archipelago – A case for conservation planning

Climate change and biodiversity loss underscore the need for conservation planning, even in remote areas. Species distribution models (SDMs) can help identify critical habitat for reserve design and selection, and have quickly advanced to the fore of ecological inquiry. Such models are typically dominated by abiotic factors, following the Eltonian Noise Hypothesis (ENH) that physical features set the limits of species distributions. Nevertheless, recent studies challenge this notion and highlight the importance of biotic interactions. Resolving this discrepancy could have significant implications for conservation and ecological understanding. To test these ideas, we built distribution models for two large herbivores, muskoxen (Ovibos muschatus) and Peary caribou (Rangifer tarandus pearyi), systematically observed across a vast spatial extent – 65 islands spanning 800,000 km2 in the Canadian High Arctic. To test the ENH we fit SDMs with two sets of predictors: (1) abiotic only (i.e. topographic, climatic) and (2) abiotic + biotic (i.e. vegetation communities, distance-to-heterospecifics). We evaluated these models and spatially estimated habitat suitability for each species. We found both sets of models had good predictive ability, although biotic variables (i.e. proportion of grass-lichen-moss) improved model performance and substantially narrowed areas of high habitat suitability. Niche overlap between caribou and muskoxen was moderate and highly suitable areas were spatially disjunct between species and largely outside protected areas. These results fail to support the ENH. Our study implies that biotic features, although often overlooked, may be important to the performance of SDMs and vital in identifying priority areas for conservation. For these large herbivores, reflecting trophic interactions in SDMs was essential when estimating areas of conservation value. Our approach helps prepare the way for improved projections regarding the prospects for wildlife while laying the foundation for biologically relevant protected areas.

Decadal turnover of thermally stressed coral taxa support a risk-spreading approach to marine reserve design

Coral reef communities exposed to rapid temperature rises and frequent thermal anomalies were evaluated for taxonomic turnover via presence/absence information over a 27-year period experiencing large changes in the dominant taxa. Temporal turnover of the taxa within sites was consistently high (~ 40%) due to both inter-annual episodic and directional changes. Turnover with time displayed a rapid increase and slow decline after sequential cool and warm thermal anomalies between 1996 and 1998. Subsequent warm temperature anomalies caused fewer broad-scale changes. Directional change for all sites combined indicated three overall gains and losses in taxa—Montipora being the only dominant taxon that declined in both abundance and presence/absence. The studied marine reserves had higher local but lower between-site taxonomic richness than fished reefs. Despite similar mean turnover, there were fewer gains than losses in marine reserves (7 gains and 20 losses in 5 sites) than fished sites (16 gains and 15 losses in 7 sites). Changes in taxonomic cover and presence/absence turnover data were not correlated, indicating that turnover detects finer scale taxonomic change likely to be missed when the cover of the dominant taxa is evaluated—especially in the higher richness marine reserves. High spatial richness, community change, and thermal acclimation in these shallow reef lagoons may have prevented higher net losses of taxa. Consequently, the probabilities of reducing local extirpations of taxa may be best achieved by planning and management that promotes spreading more evenly-spread access restrictions to reef areas with high between-site diversity rather than focusing restrictions to sites with high within-site diversity.

Quantifying factors for understanding why several small patches host more species than a single large patch

Several small habitat patches typically contain more species than a single large patch of comparable area. This pattern has fueled controversy over reserve design (the SLOSS debate); yet its causes remain poorly understood, limiting discussion of any broader biodiversity implications. Using 44 published faunal metacommunity datasets from fragments, islands and habitat islands, we test four hypotheses to explain differences in species richness (SRd) between several small patches and a single large patch: (i) beta diversity (BD); (ii) evenness of species abundance distributions (EV); (iii) size bias in sampling efficiency (SE); and (iv) taxonomy. We used individual-based null models and confirmatory path analysis to compare direct and indirect support for these non-exclusive hypotheses. Broad taxonomic grouping (invertebrates > birds = non-volant vertebrates) accounted for most of the variation in SRd, while BD, EV and SE had smaller, but comparable, direct effects (standardized coefficients = 0.42, 0.31 and −0.26 respectively). Within a taxonomic group, larger SRd occurred when both BD and EV increase. Although sampling bias probably overstates the difference in SRd, it does not explain the pattern. Beyond reserve design, the SLOSS pattern implies potential principles for managing biodiversity in fragmented landscapes. Whether this pattern should inform conservation requires greater understanding. We confirm beta diversity is the major contributor, but it is mediated by increases and decreases in evenness among small patches. Attention to how sub-division alters relative abundances (e.g., by biotic relaxation or altering competitive outcomes) might help clarify how the SLOSS pattern arises.

Transferable, predictive models of benthic communities informs marine spatial planning in a remote and data‐poor region

AbstractSystematic conservation planning requires spatial information on biodiversity. Such information is often unavailable, forcing spatial planning to rely on assumed relationships between species and environmental features. This problem is particularly acute in large, remote marine protected areas that are proliferating rapidly. Here, we use models to predict whether (a) macrobenthic biodiversity across four taxa (gorgonians, soft corals, hard corals, and sponges) with different life histories are congruent within seascape features through regional space; and (b) models generated in an intensively‐sampled area in one region can predict the occurrence of habitat‐forming macrobenthos in neighboring ones. All four taxa studied showed similar habitat preferences, but high variability in distributions among and within features suggesting factors other than simple geomorphology influence these regional biodiversity patterns. Nonetheless, models derived from one region accurately predicted the presence and absence of the same taxa hundreds of kilometers away. This transferability of models of species occurrences has the potential to deliver improved reserve design in data‐deficient regions.

Optimal Capacity Mechanisms for Competitive Electricity Markets

Capacity mechanisms are increasingly used in electricity market design around the world yet their role remains hotly debated. This paper introduces a new benchmark model of a capacity mechanism in a competitive electricity market with many different conventional generation technologies. We consider two policy instruments, a wholesale price cap and a capacity payment, and show which combinations of these instruments induce socially-optimal investment by the market. Our analysis yields a rationale for a capacity mechanism based on the internalization of a system-cost externality—even where the price cap is set at the value of lost load. In extensions, (i) we show how increasing variable renewables penetration can enhance the need for a capacity payment under a novel condition called “imperfect system substitutability”, and (ii) we outline the socially-optimal design of a strategic reserve with a targeted capacity payment.

Rewilding in the face of climate change.

Expansion of the global protected‐area network has been proposed as a strategy to address threats from accelerating climate change and species extinction. A key step in increasing the effectiveness of such expansion is understanding how novel threats to biodiversity from climate change alter concepts such as rewilding, which have underpinned many proposals for large interconnected reserves. We reviewed potential challenges that climate change poses to rewilding and found that the conservation value of large protected areas persists under climate change. Nevertheless, more attention should be given to protection of microrefugia, macrorefugia, complete environmental gradients, and areas that connect current and future suitable climates and to maintaining ecosystem processes and stabilizing feedbacks via conservation strategies that are resilient to uncertainty regarding climate trends. Because a major element of the threat from climate change stems from its novel geographic patterns, we examined, as an example, the implications for climate‐adaptation planning of latitudinal, longitudinal (continental to maritime), and elevational gradients in climate‐change exposure across the Yellowstone‐to‐Yukon region, the locus of an iconic conservation proposal initially designed to conserve wide‐ranging carnivore species. In addition to a continued emphasis on conserving intact landscapes, restoration of degraded low‐elevation areas within the region is needed to capture sites important for landscape‐level climate resilience. Extreme climate exposure projected for boreal North America suggests the need for ambitious goals for expansion of the protected‐area network there to include refugia created by topography and ecological features, such as peatlands, whose conservation can also reduce emissions from carbon stored in soil. Qualitative understanding of underlying reserve design rules and the geography of climate‐change exposure can strengthen the outcomes of inclusive regional planning processes that identify specific sites for protection.

Species and space: a combined gap analysis to guide management planning of conservation areas

With accelerating global declines in biodiversity, establishment and expansion of conservation areas (CAs) have increasingly been advocated in recent decades. Gap analysis has been useful to evaluate the sufficiency and performance of CAs. Researchers often identify putative gaps in the protection of biodiversity in CA networks, drawing on evidence from species occurrence patterns (i.e., representation), yet the effect on the gap analyses of the spatial configuration of CAs is poorly understood. Focusing on two large, charismatic carnivores of western Asia, Persian leopard and Asiatic cheetah, we used species distribution models (SDMs) to map potentially suitable habitats throughout the region. We calculated species representation for four categories of CAs within the conservation network in Iran and used a new application of graph theory to include their spatial configuration into our gap analysis. We then regressed species representation against spatial configuration to provide more insights into the performance of different categories of CAs. Results showed that the existing CA network conserves only 32% of the suitable habitats for the two species. Leveraging spatial configuration of the conservation areas into the gap analysis, however, revealed that the recently-established less strictly CAs disproportionately provide a higher contribution to the collective effectiveness of the entire conservation network. We introduce network bias as a new concept in reserve design and argue that incorporating spatial configuration into CA gap analysis improves the ability to evaluate the effectiveness of reserve network designs, and is an important decision support tool for integrated conservation planning.

Spatial conservation planning under uncertainty using modern portfolio theory and Nash bargaining solution

In recent years, researchers from interdisciplinary teams involving ecologists, economists and operations researchers collaborated to provide decision support tools to address the challenges of preserving biodiversity by optimizing the design of reserves. The goal of this paper is to further advance this area of research and provide new solutions to solve complex Spatial Conservation Planning (SCP) problems under uncertainty that consider risk preferences of decision makers. Our approach employs modern portfolio theory to address uncertainties in SCP problems, and involves two conflicting objectives: maximizing return and minimizing risk. We apply concepts from game theory such as the Nash bargaining solution to directly compute a desirable Pareto-optimal solution for the proposed bi-objective optimization formulation in natural resource management problems. We demonstrate with numerical examples that by directly computing a Nash bargaining solution, a Binary Quadratically Constrained Quadratic Program (BQCQP) can be solved. We show that our approach (implementable with commercial solvers such as CPLEX) can effectively solve the proposed BQCQP for much larger problems than previous approaches published in the ecological literature. Optimal solutions for problems with less than 400 parcels can be computed within a minute. Near optimal solutions (within at most 0.2% gap from an optimal solution) for high-dimensional problems involving up to 800 parcels can be computed within 8 h on a standard computer. We have presented a new approach to solve SCP optimization problems while considering uncertainty and risk tolerance of decision makers. Our new approach expands considerably the applicability of such SCP optimization methods to address real conservation problems.

Fine-scale barriers to connectivity across a fragmented South-East Asian landscape in six songbird species.

Habitat fragmentation is a major extinction driver. Despite dramatically increasing fragmentation across the globe, its specific impacts on population connectivity across species with differing life histories remain difficult to characterize, let alone quantify. Here, we investigate patterns of population connectivity in six songbird species from Singapore, a highly fragmented tropical rainforest island. Using massive panels of genome‐wide single nucleotide polymorphisms across dozens of samples per species, we examined population genetic diversity, inbreeding, gene flow and connectivity among species along a spectrum of ecological specificities. We found a higher resilience to habitat fragmentation in edge‐tolerant and forest‐canopy species as compared to forest‐dependent understorey insectivores. The latter exhibited levels of genetic diversity up to three times lower in Singapore than in populations from contiguous forest elsewhere. Using dense genomic and geographic sampling, we identified individual barriers such as reservoirs that effectively minimize gene flow in sensitive understorey birds, revealing that terrestrial forest species may exhibit levels of sensitivity to fragmentation far greater than previously expected. This study provides a blueprint for conservation genomics at small scales with a view to identifying preferred locations for habitat corridors, flagging candidate populations for restocking with translocated individuals and improving the design of future reserves.

A database and synthesis of euglossine bee assemblages collected at fragrance baits

Euglossine bees are an ecologically important group, which due to their diverse resource needs act as pollinators of many neotropical plants. Male euglossines collect fragrant compounds used in mating displays from diverse sources, including the flowers of orchids and other plants. This aspect of euglossine biology has proven exceptionally useful for studies of euglossine bee populations, because male bees can be readily attracted to fragrance baits deployed in natural habitats. We synthesise the data accumulated over the 50 years since the introduction of euglossine bee baiting inventories and make these data openly available in the EUGCOMM database. By fitting hierarchical joint species distribution models to presence-absence and abundance data, we reveal that the assemblages of bees attracted depend on the baits used in interaction with species-specific fragrance preferences and that bee assemblages are most diverse at sites in landscapes characterised by partial but not complete forest cover. We suggest that these results reflect the diverse resource needs of euglossine bees and are consistent with the hypothesis that male euglossines establish home ranges incorporating multiple habitat types. These results may have important consequences for the design of nature reserves in the tropics, if these iconic pollinators are to be conserved for the future.

Strategically designed marine reserve networks are robust to climate change driven shifts in population connectivity

Marine reserves can be effective conservation and fishery management tools, particularly when their design accounts for spatial population connectivity. Yet climate change is expected to significantly alter larval connectivity of many marine species, questioning whether marine reserves designed today will still be effective in the future. Here we predict how alternative marine reserve designs will affect fishery yields. We apply a range of empirically-grounded scenarios for future larval dispersal to fishery models of seven species currently managed through marine reserves in the nearshore waters in Southern California, USA. We show that networks of reserves optimized for future climate conditions differ substantially from networks designed for today’s conditions. However, the benefits of redesign are modest: a set of reserves designed for current conditions commonly produces outcomes within 10% of the best redesigned network, and far outperforms haphazardly designed networks. Thus, investing in the strategic design of marine reserves networks today may pay dividends even if the networks are not modified to keep up with environmental change.