Modelling spatial patterns of biodiversity for conservation prioritization in North‐eastern Mexico

Abstract

Relationships between spatial patterns of bird and mammal species richness in north‐eastern Mexico were analysed in relation to the location of three biosphere reserves (El Abra‐Tanchipa, El Cielo, and Sierra Gorda) and 13 priority areas recently identified for conservation. Ecological niches were modelled and potential distributions delimited for 285 bird and 114 mammal species using a genetic algorithm based on locality information from museum specimens and 15 selected environmental attributes. Potential distributions were transformed into hypothesized current distributions based on species–habitat associations as reflected in a recent land‐use map. Although species richness was lower when distributions were reduced from potential to current, spatial patterns of potential and current richness were similar. Heuristic, complementarity‐based prioritization procedures were used to identify combinations of areas and sites with maximal species representation: the biosphere reserves included 79% of birds and 74% of mammal species; eight priority areas provided an additional 11% of birds and 13% of mammals; the remaining 10% of birds and 13% of mammals were concentrated in new sites across the study area.

Climate Change and Biodiversity: Some Considerations in Forecasting Shifts in Species' Potential Distributions

“…For instance, several studies have projected future potential distributions of species for conservation purposes (Aspinall and Matthews 1994;Bakkenes et al 2002;Beaumont and Hughes 2002;Burns et al 2003;Dunbar 1998;Erasmus et al 2002;Iverson and Prasad 2001;Meynecke 2004;Midgley et al 2002;Midgley et al 2003;Ortega-Huerta and Peterson 2004;Peterson et al 2002;Skov and Svenning 2004; Tellez-Valdes and Davila- Aranda 2003; Thomas et al 2004;Williams et al 2003), resource management (Bradshaw et al 1992;Clark et al 2001;Holden et al 2003;Loukos et al 2003;Mati 2000;Rafoss and Saethre 2003;Schwartz et al 2001;Sykes 2001;van Staden et al 2004;Williams and Liebhold 2002), public health (Ando 1994; Craig et al 1999;Peterson and Shaw 2003;Wittmann et al 2001), and invasive species (Kriticos et al 2003).…”

Preliminary analysis of the ecology and geography of the Asian nuthatches (Aves: Sittidae)

“…Our use of GARP is for visualization and interpolation purposes only, and the technique has been documented in detail elsewhere (Anderson et al 2002(Anderson et al , 2003Illoldi et al 2004;Martínez-Meyer et al 2004;Ortega-Huerta and Peterson 2004;Soberón and Peterson 2004;Peterson 2005). Thus, we do not provide a full, detailed description.…”

Relating Biodiversity and Landscape Spatial Patterning to Land Ownership Regimes in Northeastern Mexico

“…The GARP system was used because of its proven ability to generate predictions of species distributions in Mexico, obtained from species collection sites, even with a small sample size, and a set of environmental variables (e.g., Peterson, 2002a, 2002b for each species with the land cover types on the map considered suitable for the occurrence of a particular species. Species-habitat associations were documented as described in Ortega- Huerta and Peterson (2004).…”