Improving effectiveness of systematic conservation planning with density data

Abstract

Systematic conservation planning aims to design networks of protected areas that meet conservation goals across large landscapes. The optimal design of these conservation networks is most frequently based on the modeled habitat suitability or probability of occurrence of species, despite evidence that model predictions may not be highly correlated with species density. We hypothesized that conservation networks designed using species density distributions more efficiently conserve populations of all species considered than networks designed using probability of occurrence models. To test this hypothesis, we used the Zonation conservation prioritization algorithm to evaluate conservation network designs based on probability of occurrence versus density models for 26 land bird species in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. We assessed the efficacy of each conservation network based on predicted species densities and predicted species diversity. High-density model Zonation rankings protected more individuals per species when networks protected the highest priority 10-40% of the landscape. Compared with density-based models, the occurrence-based models protected more individuals in the lowest 50% priority areas of the landscape. The 2 approaches conserved species diversity in similar ways: predicted diversity was higher in higher priority locations in both conservation networks. We conclude that both density and probability of occurrence models can be useful for setting conservation priorities but that density-based models are best suited for identifying the highest priority areas. Developing methods to aggregate species count data from unrelated monitoring efforts and making these data widely available through ecoinformatics portals such as the Avian Knowledge Network will enable species count data to be more widely incorporated into systematic conservation planning efforts.

The first 50 years of the North American Breeding Bird Survey

“…The confluence of several mountain ranges has created a complex geology and climate (Mitchell 1976), with corresponding diversity in habitat types, plants, and wildlife, including birds (e.g., Whittaker 1960, Trail et al 1997, DellaSala et al 1999, Strittholt and DellaSala 2001. High-ranking priority conservation areas for birds are concentrated in the Klamath and Siskiyou mountains (Veloz et al 2015).…”

Comparing abundance distributions and range maps in spatial conservation planning for migratory species

“…, Veloz et al. ). In addition, conservation for dynamic species requires incorporation of their movements through space and time (Runge et al.…”

“…However, little is known about the added benefits of this additional knowledge (Veloz et al. , Tulloch et al. ).…”

Estimating ecological metrics for holistic conservation management in a biodiverse but information‐poor tropical region

“…The decision on whether and how to collect presence/absence or abundance data is informed by the purpose of the analysis, costs and time demands, and probability of occurrence of the target species (Joseph, Field, Wilcox, & Possingham, 2006). However, despite analytical advances in tools such as SDMs, abundance estimation, and habitat modeling that have fed into mainstream academic studies (Zimmermann, Edwards, Graham, Pearman, & Svenning, 2010), they remain under-used in conservation-orientated studies, especially those aimed at priority areas (Meyer, Kreft, Guralnick, & Jetz, 2015;Veloz et al, 2015) or threatened taxa (Butchart et al, 2005;Marsden & Royle, 2015). As such, distance sampling techniques that take into account variation in detectability, have become one of the most widely used methods to estimate animal abundance in the Neotropics and elsewhere (Thomas et al, 2010).…”