Reference vs. present-day condition: early planning decisions influence the achievement of conservation objectives

Hermoso, Virgilio; Januchowski‐Hartley, Stephanie R.; Linke, Simon; Possingham, Hugh P.

doi:10.1002/aqc.1211

Cited by 25 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Another strategy was followed by Sealey et al (2014), who estimated cumulative impact scores in coastal ecosystems due to physical restructuring, destructive uses, coastal development, and alien plant invasions, evaluating high-score areas as non-priority for conservation actions. One approach followed by some studies was to integrate alien species in the cost function of MARXAN (Hermoso et al, 2011(Hermoso et al, , 2013Lawrence et al, 2011) or ZONATION (Stewart et al, 2017), which was aimed to be minimized in the prioritization process. Specifically, Hermoso et al (2011) modeled the distribution of alien freshwater fish in the study area and used the modeled abundance as a surrogate of the cost of management actions to control invasive alien species.…”

Section: Approaches Applied To Address Biological Invasions In Consermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One approach followed by some studies was to integrate alien species in the cost function of MARXAN (Hermoso et al, 2011(Hermoso et al, , 2013Lawrence et al, 2011) or ZONATION (Stewart et al, 2017), which was aimed to be minimized in the prioritization process. Specifically, Hermoso et al (2011) modeled the distribution of alien freshwater fish in the study area and used the modeled abundance as a surrogate of the cost of management actions to control invasive alien species. Hermoso et al (2013) focused on the identification of refugia for freshwater fish biodiversity conservation, and avoided planning units in poor condition by integrating condition in the cost function of MARXAN.…”

Section: Approaches Applied To Address Biological Invasions In Consermentioning

confidence: 99%

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Biological Invasions in Conservation Planning: A Global Systematic Review

et al. 2018

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Biological invasions threaten biodiversity in terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems, requiring substantial conservation and management efforts. To examine how the conservation planning literature addresses biological invasions and if planning in the marine environment could benefit from experiences in the freshwater and terrestrial systems, we conducted a global systematic review. Out of 1,149 scientific articles mentioning both "conservation planning" and "alien" or any of its alternative terms, 70 articles met our selection criteria. Most of the studies were related to the terrestrial environment, while only 10% focused on the marine environment. The main conservation targets were species (mostly vertebrates) rather than habitats or ecosystems. Apart from being mentioned, alien species were considered of concern for conservation in only 46% of the cases, while mitigation measures were proposed in only 13% of the cases. The vast majority of the studies (73%) ignored alien species in conservation planning even if their negative impacts were recognized. In 20% of the studies, highly invaded areas were avoided in the planning, while in 6% of the cases such areas were prioritized for conservation. In the latter case, two opposing approaches led to the selection of invaded areas: either alien and native biodiversity were treated equally in setting conservation targets, i.e., alien species were also considered as ecological Mačić et al. Biological Invasions in Conservation Planning features requiring protection, or more commonly invaded sites were prioritized for the implementation of management actions to control or eradicate invasive alien species. When the "avoid" approach was followed, in most of the cases highly impacted areas were either excluded or invasive alien species were included in the estimation of a cost function to be minimized. Most of the studies that followed a "protect" or "avoid" approach dealt with terrestrial or freshwater features but in most cases the followed approach could be transferred to the marine environment. Gaps and needs for further research are discussed and we propose an 11-step framework to account for biological invasions into the systematic conservation planning design.

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Section: Approaches Applied To Address Biological Invasions In Consermentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Approaches Applied To Address Biological Invasions In Consermentioning

confidence: 99%

Biological Invasions in Conservation Planning: A Global Systematic Review

et al. 2018

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“…Similarly, Hermoso et al . () found that the use of minimally disturbed vs. present‐day scenarios of fish species distributions in an Iberian river basin led to very different recommendations for identifying priority conservation areas. Here, we investigate the impacts of using historical vs. present‐day reference conditions to set recovery targets for zooplankton communities in lakes with severe and chronic industrial contamination.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gauging recovery of zooplankton from historical acid and metal contamination: the influence of temporal changes in restoration targets

Palmer

Keller

Yan

2012

Journal of Applied Ecology

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Summary1. Clearly defined restoration targets are necessary to judge the effectiveness of management actions in restoring damaged ecosystems. However, the identification of appropriate targets is difficult in a rapidly changing world. Historical reference conditions commonly provide recovery targets, but they may not be appropriate if present-day environments have shifted in response to regional or global drivers. Such shifts may need to be incorporated into restoration targets to avoid erroneous conclusions about the recovery of ecosystems damaged by localized stressors. No previous study has examined whether the selection of historical vs. present-day reference conditions alters judgments of the recovery of historically damaged ecosystems. 2. We examined 35-year trends in the zooplankton communities of four lakes polluted by smelter emissions in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Recovery was assessed by comparing the Sudbury lakes to both historical (1983-1984) and present-day (2004-2006) conditions in a set of minimally impacted reference lakes in south-central Ontario. 3. Sudbury zooplankton communities improved substantially over time when compared with both the historical and present-day recovery targets. However, recovery occurred later, and improvements differed quantitatively when judged against the present-day vs. historical targets. These differences were attributable to regional shifts in zooplankton communities that happened after the historical sampling period but were reflected in the present-day data. 4. Species richness in two Sudbury lakes met recovery targets and communities in all four lakes became more similar to those in the reference lakes. However, the continued absence of many daphniids, cyclopoids and large calanoids indicated that the lakes had not fully recovered and further monitoring is needed. 5. Synthesis and applications. Our results show that the choice of reference condition can alter recovery assessments. This finding emphasizes the importance of establishing clearly defined restoration goals to ensure appropriate choice of reference conditions. Restoration is unlikely to be judged as successful if an historical reference point is used to guide management actions meant to restore an ecosystem to present-day regional conditions.

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“…Trading off total area needed versus unprotected upstream area sensu Hermoso et al . (b), we decided to use CSM=1 for further analysis.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Merging connectivity rules and large‐scale condition assessment improves conservation adequacy in river systems

Linke

Kennard

Hermoso

et al. 2012

Journal of Applied Ecology

110

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Summary1. Conservation adequacy is defined as the ability of conservation measures to sustain biodiversity. Although river network connectivity is important for maintaining key ecological processes and ensuring persistence of biodiversity, it also facilitates the propagation of threats along river networks, which may compromise the sustainability of freshwater biodiversity and therefore conservation adequacy. This study aims to introduce two modifications to river conservation planning related to connectivity and catchment condition that together can improve the adequacy of the priority areas identified. This will establish an operational framework for end-users, such as policy makers and NGOs. 2. We operationalize the connectivity framework that has recently emerged in systematic river conservation planning by using a GIS coding system for catchment location in the conservation software package MARXAN. Additionally, we use a landscape measure of catchment disturbance to direct the conservation plan to the least-disturbed area while still meeting targets for the conservation of fish species used as surrogates for overall biodiversity in our study catchment, the Daly River in northern Australia. This proxy for condition aggregates information on land-use, extractive industries, point-source pollution, and water infrastructure. 3. We successfully modelled the distribution of 39 fish species based on GIS-derived landscape descriptors (most important descriptors were; discharge, distance to river mouth, geology and conductivity). 4. Results from the systematic planning analysis identified a portfolio of watersheds that delivered close to optimal upstream protection with around 4700 stream kilometres (30% of the total network). When using upstream disturbance as an extra penalty, most of the network stayed intact; however, a replacement area was found for a major tributary, which only added an extra 1% of the stream network to the total area. 5. Synthesis and applications. Improving conservation adequacy by accounting for upstream connectivity and condition using this easy-to-implement framework and software package has the potential to facilitate further application of systematic methods in river conservation planning. Furthermore, integrating condition as a discounting factor can also improve conservation adequacy in a broad range of environments (including terrestrial and marine), while not necessarily increasing the management costs.

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Reference vs. present-day condition: early planning decisions influence the achievement of conservation objectives

Cited by 25 publications

References 58 publications

Biological Invasions in Conservation Planning: A Global Systematic Review

Biological Invasions in Conservation Planning: A Global Systematic Review

Gauging recovery of zooplankton from historical acid and metal contamination: the influence of temporal changes in restoration targets

Merging connectivity rules and large‐scale condition assessment improves conservation adequacy in river systems

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