Informing Canada’s commitment to biodiversity conservation: A science-based framework to help guide protected areas designation through Target 1 and beyond

Coristine, Laura E.; Jacob, Aerin L.; Schuster, Richard; Otto, Sarah P.; Baron, Nancy; Bennett, Nathan; Bittick, Sarah Joy; Dey, Cody J.; Favaro, Brett; Ford, Adam T.; Nowlan, Linda; Orihel, Diane M.; Palen, Wendy J.; Polfus, Jean L.; Shiffman, David S.; Venter, Oscar; Woodley, Stephen

doi:10.1139/facets-2017-0102

Cited by 48 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 151 publications

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“…Given that species richness gradients are strongly correlated to climate, species are concentrated within the southern regions of Canada (Coristine and Kerr 2011) where many at-risk species reach their northern range limits (Gibson et al 2009). Hotspots of at-risk vertebrates are particularly prevalent in southern Ontario and Quebec, the prairies, and the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia (Coristine and Kerr 2011; WWF Canada 2019)-areas characterized by intensive land-use by agriculture and development (Coristine and Kerr 2011;Coristine et al 2018). This is particularly true for birds (eBird Canada 2018) and herpetofauna inhabiting the northern periphery of their distribution (Lesbarrères et al 2014)-taxa that occupy similar PCA space as RCD and AG.…”

Section: Threat Profilesmentioning

confidence: 99%

An analysis of threats and factors that predict trends in Canadian vertebrates designated as at-risk

Currie

Marconi

2020

FACETS

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The identification of factors that predict trends in population abundance is critical to formulate successful conservation strategies. Here, we explore population trends of Canadian vertebrates assessed as “at-risk” by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada and the threats affecting these trends using data from the Canadian Living Planet Index. We investigate how threat profiles—the combination of threats for a given species—vary among species and taxonomic groups. We then investigate threat profile as a predictor of temporal trends—both exclusively and in combination with additional biotic and abiotic factors. Species had 5.06 (±2.77) threats listed on average, and biological resource use (BRU) was the most frequently cited. Our analysis also revealed an association between taxonomic group and population trends, as measured by the proportion of annual increases (years with a positive interannual change). By contrast, the predictive power of threat profile was poor. This analysis yielded some useful insight for conservation action, particularly the prioritization of abating BRU. However, the predictive models were not as meaningful as originally anticipated. We provide recommendations on methodological improvements to advance the understanding of factors that predict trends in population abundance for prioritizing conservation action.

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Section: Threat Profilesmentioning

confidence: 99%

An analysis of threats and factors that predict trends in Canadian vertebrates designated as at-risk

Currie

Marconi

2020

FACETS

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“…However, a comprehensive assessment has not been completed for all of southern Canada using common approaches and methods. The recently published framework to guide protected areas designations in Canada (Coristine et al 2018) focuses on gaps in protected areas to guide the establishment of new parks and conservation lands, but does not integrate threats or the full range of biodiversity values (e.g. globally rare species) that many conservation groups are working to protect, particularly in southern Canada on the private land base.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Southern Canada’s crisis ecoregions: identifying the most significant and threatened places for biodiversity conservation

Kraus

Hebb

2020

Biodivers Conserv

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Identifying and protecting key areas for biodiversity is a cornerstone of effective nature conservation. This conservation assessment analyzes 77 ecoregions across the southern, settled part of Canada to identify priorities for conservation action. Our analysis included 34 measures of biodiversity, threat and conservation response. We categorized all ecoregions based on their overall biodiversity and threat scores. This categorization identified nine “crisis ecoregions.” These ecoregions have higher biodiversity and threat scores compared to other ecoregions in the study area. These ecoregions represent less than 5% of Canadian lands and inland waters but provide habitat for over 60% of Canada’s species at risk. Twenty-one ecoregions have higher biodiversity but lower threat scores. Primarily distributed in the more intact portions of the study area, these ecoregions generally have lower biodiversity scores for species diversity, but score very high for intactness, habitat diversity and congregatory species. This assessment can help to contextualize existing and proposed conservation actions by highlighting key biodiversity, threat and conservation attributes of ecoregions across southern Canada. Our assessment can be used to focus efforts on new protected areas, species at risk recovery, capacity building and ecological monitoring. The results of the conservation assessment can be applied to set and track progress toward national, regional and organizational conservation goals, including post-2020 biodiversity targets. Regular reanalysis of the ecoregions to track their trends in biodiversity, threat and conservation responses will support monitoring the effectiveness of conservation programs and highlight ecoregions where continued focus is most needed to conserve Canada’s biodiversity.

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“…Our analyses match the scale and boundaries of these decision-making units, thereby harmonizing these data to existing management infrastructure. This scale of analyses differs from some common, "ecoregional" approaches used in surrogate species analyses, which may well match ecological process and biogeographic patterns of diversity, but may not align with the decision-making unit of the agencies responsible for implementing conservation actions (Coristine et al 2018(Coristine et al , 2019Rapacciuolo et al 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating policy-relevant surrogate taxa for biodiversity conservation: a case study from British Columbia, Canada

Falconer

Ford

2020

Can. J. Zool.

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Conservation efforts often lead to a small proportion of species receiving a disproportionate amount of attention. This bias in funding may help or hinder broader goals of biodiversity conservation depending on the surrogacy value of the well-funded species. Surrogate species are selected to represent other taxa in a shared environment when it would be costly or impractical to obtain information on individual taxa. We compared the surrogacy value of common groups of taxa implicated in conservation — game species, carnivores, non-game species, and other species. Using a publicly available data set of species–habitat associations, we compared the surrogacy value for 1012 species and 64 habitat types in British Columbia, Canada. We used a conditional entropy metric to quantify pairwise associations between species via their occurrence in different habitat types. Our analysis reveals that game and non-game species surrogacy groups do not significantly differ in either the frequency of captured pairwise associations or their coverage of species. These results suggest that funding game species conservation is likely conferring some benefits to non-game species, but optimal habitat-based conservation outcomes will come from a combination of taxa. This analysis provides an important step in influencing management decisions for the preservation of biodiversity in British Columbia.

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Informing Canada’s commitment to biodiversity conservation: A science-based framework to help guide protected areas designation through Target 1 and beyond

Cited by 48 publications

References 151 publications

An analysis of threats and factors that predict trends in Canadian vertebrates designated as at-risk

An analysis of threats and factors that predict trends in Canadian vertebrates designated as at-risk

Southern Canada’s crisis ecoregions: identifying the most significant and threatened places for biodiversity conservation

Evaluating policy-relevant surrogate taxa for biodiversity conservation: a case study from British Columbia, Canada

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