Cost-effective global conservation spending is robust to taxonomic group

Abstract

Priorities for conservation investment at a global scale that are based on a single taxon have been criticized because geographic richness patterns vary taxonomically. However, these concerns focused only on biodiversity patterns and did not consider the importance of socioeconomic factors, which must also be included if conservation funding is to be allocated efficiently. In this article, we create efficient global funding schedules that use information about conservation costs, predicted habitat loss rates, and the endemicity of seven different taxonomic groups. We discover that these funding allocation schedules are less sensitive to variation in taxon assessed than to variation in cost and threat. Two-thirds of funding is allocated to the same regions regardless of the taxon, compared with only one-fifth if threat and cost are not included in allocation decisions. Hence, if socioeconomic factors are considered, we can be more confident about global-scale decisions guided by single taxonomic groups.biodiversity hotspots ͉ costs ͉ dynamic planning ͉ priority regions ͉ congruence R ecent global-scale analyses have found that the geographic species richness patterns of different taxonomic groups have low congruence (1-3). These results cast doubt on the generality of global conservation priority regions, which are often delineated based on a single taxon (1-5). These sets of high-priority regions offer conflicting conservation investment priorities because the most effective funding allocation depends on the taxon used to measure biodiversity. However, the biodiversity value of a region is only one of a number of factors that influence where conservation funds should be spent to best safeguard biodiversity (2). Both the cost of conservation action and predicted rates of habitat loss vary greatly across space (6-8), and these factors interact with biodiversity value to determine the relative priority of different regions (6, 9-11).To test whether conservation spending priorities are sensitive to the taxon used to measure biodiversity, we efficiently allocated funding between the world's 34 terrestrial ''biodiversity hotspots'' ( Fig. 1a; ref. 12) by using seven different taxonomic measures of biodiversity [the number of endemic mammals, amphibians, birds, reptiles, freshwater fishes, tiger beetles, and vascular plants (12)]. An allocation schedule was also calculated by using all terrestrial vertebrates combined. We used the biodiversity hotspots as a test case because they are regions of exceptional biodiversity value (each contains Ͼ0.5% of all vascular plant species as endemics) that are under threat (Ͼ70% of their original habitat has already been destroyed), but do not account for the relative cost of conservation in each region. We determined efficient funding allocation schedules for the hotspots by integrating biodiversity, conservation costs, and habitat loss rates into a dynamic decision-theory framework (13), with the objective of minimizing total species loss.For each of the seven taxonomic groups, we...

Enhancing ecosystem restoration efficiency through spatial and temporal coordination

“…Unfortunately, these important management considerations have not been systematically mapped across the entire GLB, so they cannot be incorporated into current optimization models. However, previous work elsewhere suggests that, in some cases, project selection is less sensitive to the distribution of beneficiary species than to spatial variation in project costs (30). We also recognize that the decision to remove a specific barrier often involves multiple stakeholders with differing social and economic values and perspectives (31).…”

Global meta-analysis reveals low consistency of biodiversity congruence relationships

“…Further, ongoing efforts to resolve the biases and deficiencies of taxonomic data sets are unlikely to occur quickly enough to allow improved conservation decision making 8 . Therefore, a major goal in ecology is to identify consistent biodiversity patterns that can be used to guide conservation actions despite this considerable uncertainty [9][10][11] .…”

Intraspecific morphological and genetic variation of common species predicts ranges of threatened ones

“…Since land cost is an important determinant of which sites may be appropriate for inclusion in a conservation plan [27,28], and analysing cost makes our planning exercise more realistic, we incorporated a budgetary ceiling on the total area of reserves selected based on genetic and morphological traits of common species, occurrences of common birds and amphibians and environmental variables (see the electronic supplementary material analyses other measures of land cost, including proximity to infrastructure). For each surrogate, we constructed a curve called a surrogacy curve using the SURROGACY software package [29,30].…”