The Global 200: A Representation Approach to Conserving the Earth’s Most Biologically Valuable Ecoregions

Olson, David M.; Dinerstein, Eric

doi:10.1046/j.1523-1739.1998.012003502.x

Cited by 1,300 publications

(872 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Therefore, reactive approaches to conservation-those focusing on regions with high past and present biodiversity loss-while important to prevent imminent extinctions, are unlikely to mitigate these projected losses. Additionally, many countries identified here as priorities for terrestrial mammals are poorly protected and poorly represented in other global conservation priority schemes [30], including the Global 200 Ecoregions [31], High-Biodiversity Wilderness Areas [23], the Last of the Wild [4] and Endemic Bird Areas [32]. We do not suggest that our rankings and maps should directly guide future conservation investments.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Future hotspots of terrestrial mammal loss

Visconti

Pressey

Giorgini

et al. 2011

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

116

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Current levels of endangerment and historical trends of species and habitats are the main criteria used to direct conservation efforts globally. Estimates of future declines, which might indicate different priorities than past declines, have been limited by the lack of appropriate data and models. Given that much of conservation is about anticipating and responding to future threats, our inability to look forward at a global scale has been a major constraint on effective action. Here, we assess the geography and extent of projected future changes in suitable habitat for terrestrial mammals within their present ranges. We used a global earth-system model, IMAGE, coupled with fine-scale habitat suitability models and parametrized according to four global scenarios of human development. We identified the most affected countries by 2050 for each scenario, assuming that no additional conservation actions other than those described in the scenarios take place. We found that, with some exceptions, most of the countries with the largest predicted losses of suitable habitat for mammals are in Africa and the Americas. African and North American countries were also predicted to host the most species with large proportional global declines. Most of the countries we identified as future hotspots of terrestrial mammal loss have little or no overlap with the present global conservation priorities, thus confirming the need for forward-looking analyses in conservation priority setting. The expected growth in human populations and consumption in hotspots of future mammal loss mean that local conservation actions such as protected areas might not be sufficient to mitigate losses. Other policies, directed towards the root causes of biodiversity loss, are required, both in Africa and other parts of the world.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Future hotspots of terrestrial mammal loss

Visconti

Pressey

Giorgini

et al. 2011

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

116

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“…More recently, the ecoregion has been adopted by the World Wide Fund for Nature (formerly World Wildlife Fund, WWF) for global conservation planning purposes (http://www.worldwildlife.org/science/ecoregions.cfm), and is becoming an influential concept. The WWF scheme defines 223 significant ecoregions (the Global 200: Olson & Dinerstein 1998, 2002. These are identified by using as starting points the 14 major terrestrial biomes listed above.…”

Section: What Is a Biome?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction and synthesis: plant phylogeny and the origin of major biomes

Pennington

Cronk

Richardson³

2004

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B

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Phylogenetic trees based upon DNA sequence data, when calibrated with a dimension of time, allow inference of: (i) the pattern of accumulation of lineages through time; (ii) the time of origin of monophyletic groups; (iii) when lineages arrived in different geographical areas; (iv) the time of origin of biome-specific morphologies. This gives a powerful new view of the history of biomes that in many cases is not provided by the incomplete plant fossil record. Dated plant phylogenies for angiosperm families such as Leguminosae (Fabaceae), Melastomataceae sensu stricto, Annonaceae and Rhamnaceae indicate that long-distance, transoceanic dispersal has played an important role in shaping their distributions, and that this can obscure any effect of tectonic history, previously assumed to have been the major cause of their biogeographic patterns. Dispersal from other continents has also been i mportant in the assembly of the Amazonian rainforest flora and the Australian flora. Comparison of dated biogeographic patterns of plants and animals suggests that recent long-distance dispersal might be more prevalent in plants, which has major implications for community assembly and coevolution. Dated plant phylogenies also reveal the role of past environmental changes on the evolution of lineages in species-rich biomes, and show that recent Plio-Pleistocene diversification has contributed substantially to their current species richness. Because of the critical role of fossils and morphological characters in assigning ages to nodes in phylogenetic trees, future studies must include careful morphological consideration of fossils and their extant relatives in a phylogenetic context. Ideal study systems will be based upon DNA sequence data from multiple loci and multiple fossil calibrations. This allows cross-validation both of age estimates from different loci, and from different fossil calibrations. For a more complete view of biome history, future studies should emphasize full taxon sampling in ecologically important groups, and should focus on geographical areas for which few species-level phylogenies are available, such as tropical Africa and Asia. These studies are urgent because understanding the history of biomes can both inform conservation decisions, and help predict the effects of future environmental changes at a time when biodiversity is being impacted on an unprecedented scale.

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“…Species distribution models have been used previously for biodiversity analysis (Austin, 1999;Ferrier et al, 2002b), improved sampling of rare and endangered species (Engler et al, 2004;Guisan et al, 2006), determination of reserve boundaries (Ferrier et al, 2002a;Araújo et al, 2004), historical reconstruction (Richards et al, 2007) and assessment of climate change impacts (Thomas et al, 2004;McClean et al, 2005). All of these applications could prove extremely useful for the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania and Kenya (EAMs; Lovett, 1985), one of the most important regions for conservation in the world (Olson and Dinerstein, 1998;Stattersfield et al, 1998;Myers et al, 2000), yet to our knowledge no regional-scale predictive model for tree distributions in this area has been published.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting tree distributions in an East African biodiversity hotspot: model selection, data bias and envelope uncertainty

Platts

McClean

Lovett

et al. 2008

Ecological Modelling

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Article:Platts, Philip J. orcid.org/0000-0002-0153-0121, McClean, Colin J. orcid.org/0000-0002-5457-4355, Lovett, Jon C. et al. (1 more AbstractThe Eastern Arc Mountains (EAMs) of Tanzania and Kenya support some of the most ancient tropical forest on Earth. The forests are a global priority for biodiversity conservation and provide vital resources to the Tanzanian population. Here, we make a first attempt to predict the spatial distribution of 40 EAM tree taxa (38 species), using generalised additive models, plot data and environmental predictor maps at 1 km resolution. The results of three modelling experiments are presented, investigating predictions obtained by (1) two different procedures for the stepwise selection of predictors, (2) down-weighting absence data, and (3) incorporating autocovariate terms to describe fine-scale spatial aggregation. In response to recent concerns regarding the extrapolation of model predictions beyond the restricted environmental range of training data, we also demonstrate a novel graphical tool for quantifying envelope uncertainty in restricted range niche-based models (envelope uncertainty maps). We find that even for taxa with very few documented occurrences useful estimates of distribution can be achieved. Initiating selection with a null model is found to be useful for explanatory purposes, whilst beginning with a full predictor set can over-fit the data. We show that a simple multimodel average of these two best-model predictions yields a superior compromise between generality and precision. Down-weighting absences shifts the balance of errors in favour of higher sensitivity, reducing the number of serious mistakes (i.e., falsely predicted absences); however, response functions are more complex, exacerbating uncertainty in larger models. Spatial autocovariates help describe fine-scale patterns of occurrence and significantly improve explained deviance, though if important environmental constraints are omitted then model stability and explanatory power can be compromised. We conclude that the best modelling practice is contingent both on the 60 | Platts PhD Thesis intentions of the analyst (explanation or prediction) and on the quality of distribution data.Generalised additive models have potential to provide valuable information for conservation in the EAMs, but methods must be carefully considered, particularly if occurrence data are scarce.

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The Global 200: A Representation Approach to Conserving the Earth’s Most Biologically Valuable Ecoregions

Cited by 1,300 publications

References 12 publications

Future hotspots of terrestrial mammal loss

Future hotspots of terrestrial mammal loss

Introduction and synthesis: plant phylogeny and the origin of major biomes

Predicting tree distributions in an East African biodiversity hotspot: model selection, data bias and envelope uncertainty

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