Effectiveness of protected areas in conserving tropical forest birds

Abstract

Protected areas are the cornerstones of global biodiversity conservation efforts 1,2 , but to fulfil this role they must be effective at conserving the ecosystems and species that occur within their boundaries. This is particularly imperative in tropical forest hotspots, regions that concentrate a major fraction of the world's biodiversity while also being under intense human pressure 3-5 . But these areas strongly lack adequate monitoring datasets enabling to contrast biodiversity in protected areas with comparable unprotected sites 6,7 .Here we take advantage of the world's largest citizen science biodiversity dataset -eBird 8 -to quantify the extent to which protected areas in eight tropical forest biodiversity hotspots are effective at retaining bird diversity, and to understand the underlying mechanisms. We found generally positive effects of protection on the diversity of bird species that are forest-dependent, endemic to the hotspots, or threatened or Near Threatened, but not on overall bird species richness. Furthermore, we show that in most of the hotspots examined this is driven by protected areas preventing both forest loss and degradation.Our results support calls for increasing the extent and strengthening the management efforts within protected areas to reduce global biodiversity loss 9-11 .

The multifaceted challenge of evaluating protected area effectiveness

“…Among the few available studies, some report a positive effect of protection on local species richness and overall abundance 11 , 23 . Others however found no effect on species richness, but a positive effect of some specific groups, like specialist 12 , 14 , vulnerable 13 , 14 or narrow-range species 14 , consistent with an effect of PAs in avoiding community homogenisation. Given the poor sensitivity of local species richness to anthropogenic land use transformation 24 , it is arguably a poor indicator of PA effectiveness, which should instead focus on effects on the species that need conservation the most 12 , 14 .…”

“…Many of these studies are in the context of measuring progress towards Aichi Target 11 of the 2011–2020 CBD Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 3 , which included quantitative targets for extent (17% of terrestrial area and 10% of the oceans by 2020), and qualitative targets for location (focus on ‘areas of particular importance for biodiversity’; ‘ecologically representative and well connected systems’) and for management (‘effectively and equitably managed PAs’). Recent studies have also investigated the effects of PAs on threat abatement (mainly on habitat loss) 9 , 10 , with a smaller but increasing number of analyses attempting to quantify conservation outcomes directly 11 – 14 .…”

Patterns of Bat Diversity in an Undisturbed Forest and Forest Mosaic Habitats of the Afromontane Forest Biome of Western Cameroon

“…Therefore, understanding the habitat needs of species and how human-caused disturbance affects the pattern of species diversity and abundance is essential in determining the degree of sensitivity to fragmentation and local extinction risk, which in turn could be essential for developing effective species-specific conservation strategies. Furthermore, the observed differences in the bat communities between the two habitat types underscore the significance of maintaining primary forest as a means of avoiding the functional homogenization of the biome by preventing the local extinction of forest species (Cazalis et al, 2020). Finally, the occurrence of at least 10% of bats recorded in Cameroon in the biome indicates the forest remnant needs to be preserved by the local community as a means of safeguarding the local bat diversity.…”

Effectiveness of the protected areas on the Mornington Peninsula for the common resident shorebird species using citizen science data

“…Protected areas are a key strategy for preserving biodiversity, but few studies have evaluated the effectiveness of this strategy. However, Cazalis et al (2020) have used citizen science data from the eBird platform (eBird.org, 2021) to show that creating protected areas is an effective strategy for retaining species of conservation concern. This conclusion was based on studies of eight tropical forest biodiversity hotspots in Asia, Africa and the Americas, where biodiversity was particularly threatened, and data was particularly scarce.…”