Conserving European biodiversity across realms

Abstract

Terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems are connected via multiple biophysical and ecological processes. Identifying and quantifying links among ecosystems is necessary for the uptake of integrated conservation actions across realms. Such actions are particularly important for species using habitats in more than one realm during their daily or life cycle. We reviewed information on the habitats of 2,408 species of European conservation concern and found that 30% of the species use habitats in multiple realms. Transportation and service corridors, which fragment species habitats, were identified as the most important threat impacting ∼70% of the species. We examined information on 1,567 European Union (EU) conservation projects funded over the past 25 years, to assess the adequacy of efforts toward the conservation of “multi‐realm” species at a continental scale. We discovered that less than a third of multi‐realm species benefited from projects that included conservation actions across multiple realms. To achieve the EU's conservation target of halting biodiversity loss by 2020 and effectively protect multi‐realm species, integrated conservation efforts across realms should be reinforced by: (1) recognizing the need for integrated management at a policy level, (2) revising conservation funding priorities across realms, and (3) implementing integrated land‐freshwater‐sea conservation planning and management.

Twelve Recommendations for Advancing Marine Conservation in European and Contiguous Seas

“…To achieve the EU's conservation target of halting biodiversity loss, the explicit consideration of connectivity and more effective protection of multi-realm species is required (Giakoumi et al, 2019b;Hermoso et al, 2019a). In particular, we recommend that the integration of conservation efforts across realms incorporates the following two steps:…”

“…(i) Recognition of the need for integrated management across realms at a policy level. Management policies and strategies will be much more efficient if they consider a broader array of ecosystems and their connections (Giakoumi et al, 2019b). This is needed to address the challenges associated with managing species with complex biological cycles that span across more than one realm.…”

“…For instance, despite the recognition that invasive alien species and neonatives (sensu Essl et al, 2019) may substantially compromise conservation efforts (Giakoumi et al, 2019a), biological invasions are rarely taken into account in conservation plans (Giakoumi et al, 2016;Mačić et al, 2018). Connections among realms are also commonly overlooked in conservation efforts, despite the need for integrated cross-realm actions for the protection of many threatened multirealm species (Giakoumi et al, 2019b). details on the working groups and stated MarCons objectives see Katsanevakis et al, 2017).…”

“…A number of systematic reviews were conducted to critically compile and analyze existing knowledge, current practices, methodological tools, and state-of-the-art in specific topics (e.g., Mačić et al, 2018;Gissi et al, 2019;Corrales et al, 2020). Data from large public databases, such as the Natura 2000 database, the European Red List, and the LIFE program (EU's funding instrument for the environment and climate) database, were retrieved and analyzed to gain insight on conservation outcomes, threats, practices, and efficiency (e.g., Fraschetti et al, 2018;Giakoumi et al, 2019b;Mazaris et al, 2019). Expert knowledge elicitation techniques were applied to evaluate and prioritize management actions (Giakoumi et al, 2019c).…”

“…Participating experts offered datasets, whose compilation and analysis provided new insights on the status of the marine environment in European regions (e.g., . The collective and multi-disciplinary expertise within MarCons, combined with the above-mentioned analyses, was utilized to propose new approaches and tools to advance marine conservation in Europe and beyond (e.g., Bates et al, 2018;Stelzenmüller et al, 2018;Giakoumi et al, 2019b;Rilov et al, 2019). Through all these processes, MarCons working groups provided recommendations to advance marine conservation.…”