Functional connectivity of the world’s protected areas

Brennan, Angela; Naidoo, Robin; Greenstreet, Laura; Mehrabi, Zia; Ramankutty, Navin; Kremen, Claire

doi:10.1126/science.abl8974

Cited by 77 publications

(84 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…For species-agnostic approaches, maps of human modification often serve as the basis of resistance under the assumption that maintaining connectivity through the most "natural" lands will provide the best opportunities for successful movement for the greatest number of species (Lawler et al 2013;Belote et al 2016;Parks et al 2020;Barnett and Belote 2021). The precise relationship between human modification and landscape resistance to movement is usually poorly quantified (Tucker et al 2018;Brennan et al 2022). Identifying connectivity priorities for "human-tolerant" species compared to "human-sensitive" species can be done using different transformations of human modification data to create maps of landscape resistance (Keeley et al 2016;Belote et al 2016;Belote and Wilson 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Conservation scientists are evaluating connectivity priorities at local (Compton et al 2007), regional (Leonard et al 2017;Schloss et al 2022), continental (Carroll et al 2018;Barnett and Belote 2021), and global (Ward et al 2020;Brennan et al 2022) extents. Providing organisms opportunities to adapt to increasing human pressure and the effects of climate change via long-distance dispersal -over multiple generations and long time periods -is increasingly recognized as an important long-term adaptation strategy in conservation planning (Lawler et al 2009;Carroll et al 2018;Parks et al 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Examining local and regional ecological connectivity throughout North America

Belote¹,

Barnett²,

Zeller

et al. 2022

Landsc Ecol

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Context Conservation scientists recommend maintaining and restoring ecological connectivity to sustain biodiversity in the face of land-use and climate change. Alternative connectivity assessments conducted at multiple spatial scales are needed to understand consequences of varying assumptions and for use in multi-scale conservation planning. Objectives We compared mapped output from different model scenarios conducted to identify areas important for ecological connectivity across North America. We asked how areas important for connectivity vary with spatial scale and assumptions regarding the way in which human modification affects landscape resistance. Methods We conducted a factorial experiment using omnidirectional connectivity analyses across North America where we crossed “treatments” represented by four moving window sizes and three resistance surfaces. The three resistance surfaces represent a gradient in species’ sensitivity to human modification. Results Maps of connectivity importance varied among scenarios. The effects of moving window size were more conspicuous than effects of different resistance surfaces. Outputs from small moving windows revealed mottled patterns of connectivity importance, while outputs from larger moving windows revealed broad swaths of connectivity importance across mountainous and boreal areas of North America. Patterns of connectivity importance tended to be more channelized from resistance surfaces produced to represent more human-sensitive species and more diffuse from resistance surfaces produced to represent more human-tolerant species. Conclusions Our scenarios and output represent alternative hypotheses and predictions about how multiple species may move in response to varying degrees of human modification. Our output can be compared to species-specific models to investigate which of our scenarios best matches observed movements of organisms. Our output can also be used as coarse-filter and multi-scale connectivity assessments for conservation plans. Notably, our outputs highlight the importance of small and isolated fragments of relatively natural land while simultaneously identifying broad regions important for maintaining connectivity across natural areas of North America.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining local and regional ecological connectivity throughout North America

Belote¹,

Barnett²,

Zeller

et al. 2022

Landsc Ecol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This outcome illustrates that adequate survey data can be crucial for reliably modeling species distributions [but see Pearson et al (2007)], especially when the study landscape is complex and heterogenous. Alternatively, besides the inadequacy of survey data, this finding may indicate that the processes behind these species' distributions were not captured faithfully by our models, for example because we did not explicitly account for functional connectivity and thus reachability of habitat (Kool et al, 2012;Villard and Metzger, 2014;Brennan et al, 2022).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

The effectiveness of a large protected area to conserve a global endemism hotspot may vanish in the face of climate and land-use changes

2022

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Endemic vertebrates are a crucial component of biodiversity, yet face disproportionally high extinction risk as climate and land-use changes drive habitat loss. Large protected areas are therefore deemed necessary to mitigate biodiversity loss. In 2021, China’s Giant Panda National Park (GPNP, 27,134 km2) was established in one of the global endemism hotspots. In this study we ask the question whether this large national park is able to conserve the many threatened endemic vertebrates occurring in the region in the face of climate and land-use changes, in order to assess the long-term effectiveness of the GPNP. We used species distribution modeling techniques to project the distributions of 40 threatened terrestrial (and freshwater) endemic vertebrates under land-use and climate change scenarios SSP2–4.5, SSP3–7.0 and SSP5–8.5 in 2081–2100, and assessed the extent to which their distributions are covered by the GPNP, now and in the future. We found that by 2081–2100, two thirds of the threatened endemic vertebrates are predicted to lose part (15–79%, N = 4) of or (nearly) their entire (80–100% loss, N = 23) range under all three climate and land-use change scenarios. Consequently, fewer species are predicted to occur in the GPNP than at present. Our findings confirm the high vulnerability of threatened endemic species to climate and land-use changes, despite protected areas. Habitat loss due to climate and land-use changes elevate extinction risk of species in endemism hotspots across the globe. Urgent, widespread and intensified mitigation measures and adaptation measures are required at a landscape scale for effective conservation efforts in the future.

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“…Although our zone-wise analyses allowed for better geographic representation of sites, it still indicated lack of connectivity across zone boundaries. These issues together emphasize that functional connectivity is an important consideration while implementing landscape-scale conservation interventions within our priority sites (see Brennan et al 2022). Traditional PAs, which typify a land-sparing approach to conservation, are mostly focused on forested habitats in the country.…”

Section: Landscape-level Approach To Conservationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prioritizing landscapes to reconcile biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services, and human well-being in India

Srivathsa

Vasudev²,

Nair

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Biodiversity conservation and human well-being are tightly interlinked; yet mismatches in the scale at which both priorities are planned have led to biodiversity loss, erosion of ecosystem services, and declining human quality of life. In India, <5% of the land area is effectively protected for conservation, while the rest is impacted by the second largest human population on the planet. This warrants landscape-level conservation planning through a judicious mix of land-sharing and land-sparing approaches, and co-production of ecosystem services. Through a multi-faceted assessment, we prioritize spatial extents of land parcels that, in the face of anthropogenic threats, can safeguard conservation landscapes across India's biogeographic zones. We find that only a fraction (~15%) of such priority areas identified here are encompassed under India's extant PA network, and several landscapes of high importance were omitted in all previous global-scale assessments. We then examined the spatial congruence of priority areas with administrative units earmarked for economic development by the Indian government, and propose management-zoning through State-driven and participatory approaches. Our spatially explicit insights can help meet the twin goals of biodiversity conservation and sustainable development in a strategically important country for Asia.

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Functional connectivity of the world’s protected areas

Cited by 77 publications

References 54 publications

Examining local and regional ecological connectivity throughout North America

Examining local and regional ecological connectivity throughout North America

The effectiveness of a large protected area to conserve a global endemism hotspot may vanish in the face of climate and land-use changes

Prioritizing landscapes to reconcile biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services, and human well-being in India

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