GapAnalysis: an R package to calculate conservation indicators using spatial information

Abstract

Effective assessments of the current status of biodiversity conservation are needed to support planning, policy and action, from local to global levels. Of particular use would be well documented, reproducible methods based on openly accessible data and tools. Such methods should provide an accurate estimate of the state of conservation of diversity, identifying gaps in current conservation systems, while providing a benchmark against which to measure success, including determining when conservation goals have been met. Here we introduce GapAnalysis, an open source R package developed to support the assessment of the state of conservation of taxa, both ex situ (in genebanks, botanic gardens and other repositories) and in situ (in protected natural areas). The eco‐geographic variation maintained in conservation repositories and that present within protected natural areas is compared with the full extent of eco‐geographic variation predicted within species' native ranges. Eco‐geographic conservation gaps are identified, and taxa are then prioritized for further action. The package enables users to quickly determine conservation status, gaps and priorities for as few as one to as many as thousands of taxa, for any wild flora or fauna for which occurrence data and species distribution models are available. To demonstrate the use of GapAnalysis, we provide case studies for wild plant taxa in the genera Capsicum L. and Cucurbita L, with an accompanying online R tutorial for three of the Cucurbita species.

Plant conservation assessment at scale: rapid triage of extinction risks

“…Obvious next steps for our priority species would be in-depth approaches like gap analysis (Sowa et al, 2007; Carver et al, 2021), connectivity analysis (Fajardo et al, 2014), or ecological modeling (Rodríguez et al, 2007), to name just a few. We hope to provide a basis for identifying and pursuing such studies, as our methods could be applied to many other groups.…”

Red List and Vulnerability Assessment of the Páramo Vascular Flora in the Nevados Natural National Park (Colombia)

“…For those species finally classified as threatened (VU, EN, or CR) after our full Criterion B evaluation as well as those previously evaluated, we performed a final analysis using an geographic-ecological approach to evaluate their conservation gaps and suggest prioritized initiatives depending on the species’ threat status and its representation in conservation strategies. Towards this goal, we employed the Carver et al (2021) method (package GapAnalysis ), which relies on existing conservation practices targeting the species of interest and calculate nine metrics recommended by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and calculating conservation representativeness in both ex-situ and in-situ initiatives (CBD, 2020; Hoban et al, 2020; Khoury et al, 2019).…”

Banana seed genetic resources for food security: Status, constraints, and future priorities

“…A total of 513 seed accessions of 53 taxa and 2079 occurrence records were used in the gap analysis and conservation prioritization (excluding accessions not defined to species level); of which 274 seed accessions of 26 taxa had unique coordinates and SDMs (used to calculate GRSex and ERSex). For these analyses, we used the Gap Analysis R package (Carver et al, 2021 ). To map where maximum numbers of different species could be sampled for future collection to increase GRSex and ERSex, we overlaid SDMs minus 50 km buffers of existing collecting locations and summed the number of species modelled.…”

“…For these analyses, we used the Gap Analysis R package (Carver et al, 2021). To map where maximum numbers of different species could be sampled for future collection to increase GRSex and ERSex, we overlaid SDMs minus 50 km buffers of existing collecting locations and summed the number of species modelled.…”