Biodiversity and Protected Areas assembles twelve topics from around the world, illustrating the complexities and promise of addressing the biodiversity crisis. Authors from Mongolia, Africa, India, ...Canada, Iraq, and the United States dwell on particular aspects and challenges relevant to those regions. Lessons and approaches from interesting localities, coupled with global analyses give the reader a synthetic view of emerging problems. The opportunities for understanding common issues across different geographies abound, such as comparing local conservation in sub-Saharan Africa with a distribution of very small protected areas in Massachusetts. Several topics will be of immediate interest to policymakers. The book is illustrated with numerous color maps and figures and the authors strove for clear, uncomplicated writing. The editors provide an overview of chapters, placing them in the context of other biodiversity and protected area literature. Students and conservationists attempting to broaden their views of biodiversity and protected areas should find this collection to be interesting.
Protected areas conserve biodiversity and ecosystem functions but might impede local economic growth. Understanding the global patterns and predictors of different relationships between protected ...area effectiveness and neighboring community economic growth can inform better implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. We assessed 10,143 protected areas globally with matched samples to address the non-random location of protected areas. Our results show that protected areas resist human-induced land cover changes and do not limit nightlight increases in neighboring settlements. This result is robust, using different matching techniques, parameter settings, and selection of covariates. We identify four types of relationships between land cover changes and nightlight changes for each protected area: “synergy,” “retreat,” and two tradeoff relationships. About half of the protected areas (47.5%) retain their natural land cover and do so despite an increase of nightlights in the neighboring communities. This synergy relationship is the most common globally but varies between biomes and continents. Synergy is less frequent in the Amazon, Southeast Asia, and some developing areas, where most biodiversity resides and which suffer more from poverty. Smaller protected areas and those with better access to cities, moderate road density, and better baseline economic conditions have a higher probability of reaching synergy. Our results are promising, as the expansion of protected areas and increased species protection will rely more on conserving the human-modified landscape with smaller protected areas. Future interventions should address local development and biodiversity conservation together to achieve more co-benefits.
•Protected areas do not limit nightlight increases in neighboring communities•Half of protected areas show synergy: conservation effectiveness and local development•Synergy differs between biomes, continents, and countries•Socioeconomic drivers and protected area size are the best predictors of synergy
Protected areas are key to biodiversity conservation but are often treated as obstacles to local development. Li et al. use evidence from 10,143 protected areas to understand if there is compatibility between protected area effectiveness and economic development in neighboring communities and, if so, what factors drive such compatibility.
•Environmental DNA samples were taken seasonally in a Marine Protected Area.•Vulnerable species were mostly detected in the Fully Protected Area.•eDNA metabarcoding revealed seasonal changes in ...community composition.•Fish composition changes were detected along a depth gradient.•eDNA is useful for frequent monitoring in MPAs to guide management strategies.
Marine fish communities suffer from anthropogenic pressures and climate change, which influence their spatio-temporal dynamics. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have been established worldwide to preserve these communities, while mesophotic ecosystems could provide natural refugia. Assessing the extent to which MPAs and deeper ecosystems can mitigate human and climate change impacts requires regular monitoring of temporal community dynamics. Environmental DNA (eDNA) surveys – being time- and cost-effective – can provide valuable insights on biodiversity change. Here, we initiated a long-term study based on eDNA monitoring in an MPA in the north-western Mediterranean Sea that includes areas with various protection levels. Specifically, from June 2021 to January 2023, we collected eDNA samples during the summer, fall, and winter seasons from shallow water (20 m depth), at 40 m depth, and from the mesophotic zone (80 m depth) in a Fully Protected Area (FPA) and in a nearby Lightly Protected Area (LPA) in the Riou archipelago (France). In this short period and relatively small area, we detected a total of 113 actinopterygian and chondrichthyan taxa. Species with high fishing vulnerability had higher detection rates in the FPA than in the LPA, suggesting a positive impact of FPAs on the conservation of these threatened species. A marked seasonal signal in species detections, including significantly lower detections of several species in winter, indicated a combined effect of species biological changes and migration behavior. The seasonality trend was stronger in the FPA than in the LPA, indicating that such areas may modify sub-yearly patterns in communities and ecosystem processes. Fish composition was associated with water depth, with marked species dissimilarities between shallow waters and the mesophotic zone, implying that multiple depths should be considered in MPA monitoring to fully capture the response of biodiversity to management. Our results point to the importance of temporal information combined with extensive sampling across depths and protection levels to fully understand the ecological dynamics and structure of coastal fish communities.
Marine protected areas (MPAs) have gained attention as a conservation tool for enhancing ecosystem resilience to climate change. However, empirical evidence explicitly linking MPAs to enhanced ...ecological resilience is limited and mixed. To better understand whether MPAs can buffer climate impacts, we tested the resistance and recovery of marine communities to the 2014-2016 Northeast Pacific heatwave in the largest scientifically designed MPA network in the world off the coast of California, United States. The network consists of 124 MPAs (48 no-take state marine reserves, and 76 partial-take or special regulation conservation areas) implemented at different times, with full implementation completed in 2012. We compared fish, benthic invertebrate, and macroalgal community structure inside and outside of 13 no-take MPAs across rocky intertidal, kelp forest, shallow reef, and deep reef nearshore habitats in California's Central Coast region from 2007 to 2020. We also explored whether MPA features, including age, size, depth, proportion rock, historic fishing pressure, habitat diversity and richness, connectivity, and fish biomass response ratios (proxy for ecological performance), conferred climate resilience for kelp forest and rocky intertidal habitats spanning 28 MPAs across the full network. Ecological communities dramatically shifted due to the marine heatwave across all four nearshore habitats, and MPAs did not facilitate habitat-wide resistance or recovery. Only in protected rocky intertidal habitats did community structure significantly resist marine heatwave impacts. Community shifts were associated with a pronounced decline in the relative proportion of cold water species and an increase in warm water species. MPA features did not explain resistance or recovery to the marine heatwave. Collectively, our findings suggest that MPAs have limited ability to mitigate the impacts of marine heatwaves on community structure. Given that mechanisms of resilience to climate perturbations are complex, there is a clear need to expand assessments of ecosystem-wide consequences resulting from acute climate-driven perturbations, and the potential role of regulatory protection in mitigating community structure changes.
Kelp forests are among the most productive ecosystems on Earth. In combination with their close proximity to the shore, the productivity and biodiversity of these ecosystems generate a wide range of ...ecosystem services including supporting (e.g., primary production, habitat), regulating (e.g., water flow, coastal erosion), provisioning (e.g., commercial and recreational fisheries), and cultural (e.g., recreational, artisanal) services. For these reasons, kelp forests have long been the target of ecological studies. However, with few exceptions, these studies have been localized and short term (<5 years). In 1999, recognizing the importance of large‐scale, long‐term studies for understanding the structure, functioning, and dynamics of coastal marine ecosystems, and for informing policy, the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO) designed and initiated a large‐scale, long‐term monitoring study of kelp forest ecosystems along 1400 km of coast stretching from southern California to southern Oregon, USA. The purpose of the study has been to characterize the spatial and temporal patterns of kelp forest ecosystem structure and evaluate the relative contributions of biological and environmental variables derived from external sources (e.g., sea otter density, Chl‐a concentration, sea surface temperature, wave energy) in explaining observed spatial and temporal patterns. For this purpose, the ecological community (i.e., density, percent cover, or biomass of conspicuous fishes, invertebrates, and macroalgae) and geomorphological attributes (bottom depth, substratum type, and vertical relief) of kelp forest ecosystems have been surveyed annually using SCUBA divers trained in both scientific diving and data collection techniques and the identification of kelp forest species. The study region spans distinct ecological and biogeographic provinces, which enables investigations of how variation in environmental drivers and distinctive species compositions influence community structure, and its response to climate‐related environmental change across a portion of the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem. These data have been used to inform fisheries management, design and evaluate California's state‐wide network of marine protected areas (MPAs), and assess the ecological consequences of climate change (e.g., marine heatwaves). Over time, the spatial and temporal design of the monitoring program was adapted to fill its role in evaluating the ecological responses to the establishment of MPAs. There are no copyright restrictions; please cite this paper when data are used.
The aim of this work was to evaluate the performance of the FMA+ fire index for the Serra do Tombador Natural Reserve region in Cavalcante, Goiás. The dataset was composed of records provided by the ...reserve’s meteorological station and hotspot detection by satellites. The period analyzed was from 2016 to 2020. The index was fitted by modifying the limits of the fire hazard classes of the FMA+, where: a) the distribution of the number of days in each class presented decreasing behavior; and b) the number of days with hotspots by hazard class presented increasing behavior. The performance was evaluated through the skill score and accuracy methods. The FMA+ index received a skill score of 0.5 and accuracy of 75%, but it was necessary to adjust the classes to reach those levels. The results indicated that the adjusted FMA + index was suitable for use in the study region.
Marine protected areas (MPAs) are an area-based conservation strategy commonly used to safeguard marine biodiversity and ecosystem services. Ecological connectivity governs the exchange of ...individuals among spatially fragmented habitats and is often highlighted as an important element in the design of MPAs. However, the degree to which measured or modelled representations of connectivity are applied to marine management decisions worldwide remains unclear. We reviewed the scientific and management literature to explore the application of connectivity in MPAs located in six countries or regions with advanced marine spatial planning. Only 11% of the 746 MPAs we examined considered connectivity as an ecological criterion, increasingly so since 2007. Landscape measures such as habitat linkages were used most frequently by managers and genetic and modelling approaches by scientists. Of the MPAs that considered connectivity, 71% were for state marine conservation areas or reserves in California and commonwealth marine reserves in Australia. This pattern indicates substantial geographic bias. We propose that the incorporation of connectivity in conservation planning needs to become more accessible to practitioners and provide four recommendations that together will allow scientists and managers to bridge this gap: 1. determine whether to prioritize connectivity as an ecological criterion, 2. identify the role of an MPA in supporting connectivity, 3. identify the appropriate spatial and temporal scale of connectivity, and 4. improve regional knowledge of connectivity patterns. We also propose a framework to facilitate the communication of metrics and patterns of connectivity between scientists and practitioners to apply the best available information in the design and adaptive management of MPAs and networks of MPAs. Keywords: Connectivity, Marine protected area, Marine protected area network, Ecological selection criteria, Area-based conservation strategies, Systematic conservation planning
Camera trapping is a powerful tool for studying mammal populations over large spatial scales. Density estimation using camera-trap data is a commonly desired outcome, but most approaches only work ...for species that can be individually recognized, and researchers studying most mammals are typically constrained to measures of site occupancy or detection rate. These 2 metrics are often used as measures of relative abundance and presumed to be related directly to animal density. To test this relationship, we estimated density, occupancy, and detection rate of male white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) using camera-trap data collected from 1,199 cameras across 20 study sites. Detection rate and density exhibited stronger positive linear correlation (r2 = 0.80) than occupancy and density (r2 = 0.27). When hunted and unhunted paired areas were compared, detection rate and density showed the same trend between paired sites 62.5% of the time compared to 87.5% for occupancy and density. In particular, agreement between estimates was lowest for pairs of sites that had the largest differences in surrounding housing density. Although it is clear occupancy and detection rate contain some information about density, models suggested different ecological relationships associated with the metrics. Using occupancy or detection rate as proxies for density may be particularly problematic when comparing between areas where animals might to move or behave differently, such as urban–wild interfaces. In such cases, alternate methods of density approximation are recommended.
Protected areas (including other effective area-based conservation measures) are a cornerstone of biodiversity conservation. Many countries are increasingly committed to expanding protected area ...coverage to 30%, which requires an increase in global annual spending from $24b to ~$140b (between $103b and $177b). We find that by trading nature-based carbon credits in voluntary carbon markets at the current average market price of $5 t−1CO2, 79 countries and territories can expand protected areas without capital deficit, together generate return on investments of $121b yr−1 and sequester 3 GtCO2eyr−1. Another 30 countries can meet at least half of their investment costs, and sequester an additional 2.8 GtCO2e yr−1. Additionally, we show that protection can extend to 33% of the Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) outside the existing protected area network. Our results point to the largely untapped potential of nature-based climate solutions to accelerate protected area expansion, thereby conserving biodiversity and mitigating climate change.
Marine protected areas (MPAs) are key tools to mitigate human impacts in coastal environments, promoting sustainable activities to conserve biodiversity. The designation of MPAs alone may not result ...in the lessening of some human threats, which is highly dependent on management goals and the related specific regulations that are adopted. Here, we develop and operationalize a local threat assessment framework. We develop indices to quantify the effectiveness of MPAs (or individual zones within MPAs in the case of multiple-use MPAs) in reducing anthropogenic extractive and non-extractive threats operating at local scale, focusing specifically on threats that can be managed through MPAs. We apply this framework in 15 Mediterranean MPAs to assess their threat reduction capacity. We show that fully protected areas effectively eliminate extractive activities, whereas the intensity of artisanal and recreational fishing within partially protected areas, paradoxically, is higher than that found outside MPAs, questioning their ability at reaching conservation targets. In addition, both fully and partially protected areas attract non-extractive activities that are potential threats. Overall, only three of the 15 MPAs had lower intensities for the entire set of eight threats considered, in respect to adjacent control unprotected areas. Understanding the intensity and occurrence of human threats operating at the local scale inside and around MPAs is important for assessing MPAs effectiveness in achieving the goals they have been designed for, informing management strategies, and prioritizing specific actions.
•We present and operationalize a cost-effective framework to quantify local threats inside and outside MPAs.•We assess how good MPAs are at curbing extractive and non-extractive threats.•Fully protected areas effectively eliminate extractive threats.•Fully protected areas attract non-extractive threats, when allowed.•Small scale fishing intensity is larger in partially protected areas than outside.
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