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Freshwater fish diversity hotspots for conservation priorities in the Amazon Basin |
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| Authors: | Céline Jézéquel Pablo A Tedesco William Darwall Murilo S Dias Renata G Frederico Max Hidalgo Bernard Hugueny Javier Maldonado-Ocampo Koen Martens Hernan Ortega Gislene Torrente-Vilara Jansen Zuanon Thierry Oberdorff |
| Institution: | 1. UMR EDB (Laboratoire Évolution et Diversité Biologique), CNRS 5174, IRD253, UPS, 118 route de Narbonne, F-31062 Toulouse, France;2. Freshwater Biodiversity Unit, IUCN Global Species Programme, Pembroke Street, CB2 3QZ Cambridge, U.K.;3. Departamento de Ecologia, Universidade de Brasília, Asa Norte, 70910-900 Brasilia, DF, Brazil;4. Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA), Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Rua Augusto Correia, Guamá, 66075110 Belém, PA, Brazil;5. Departamento de Ictiología, Museo de Historia Natural, Universidad Nacional Mayor San Marcos, Avenida Arenales 1256, Jesús María 15072, 14 Lima, Peru;6. Unidad de Ecología y Sistemática (UNESIS), Laboratorio de Ictiología, Departamento de Biología, Facultad de Ciencias, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Carrera 7 No. 40–62, 110231 Bogotá, Colombia
Deceased;7. Department of Freshwater Biology, Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences, Vautierstraat 29, B-1000 Brussels, Belgium Department of Biology, Uiversity of Ghent, K.L. Ledeganckstraat 35, B-9000 Gent, Belgium;8. Departamento de Ciências do Mar, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Campus Baixada Santista. Rua Doutor Carvalho de Mendonça, 144, Encruzilhada, 11015-020 Santos, SP, Brazil;9. Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Coordenação de Biodiversidade, Avenida André Araújo, 69067–375 Manaus, AM, Brazil |
| Abstract: | Conserving freshwater habitats and their biodiversity in the Amazon Basin is a growing challenge in the face of rapid anthropogenic changes. We used the most comprehensive fish-occurrence database available (2355 valid species; 21,248 sampling points) and 3 ecological criteria (irreplaceability, representativeness, and vulnerability) to identify biodiversity hotspots based on 6 conservation templates (3 proactive, 1 reactive, 1 representative, and 1 balanced) to provide a set of alternative planning solutions for freshwater fish protection in the Amazon Basin. We identified empirically for each template the 17% of sub-basins that should be conserved and performed a prioritization analysis by identifying current and future (2050) threats (i.e., degree of deforestation and habitat fragmentation by dams). Two of our 3 proactive templates had around 65% of their surface covered by protected areas; high levels of irreplaceability (60% of endemics) and representativeness (71% of the Amazonian fish fauna); and low current and future vulnerability. These 2 templates, then, seemed more robust for conservation prioritization. The future of the selected sub-basins in these 2 proactive templates is not immediately threatened by human activities, and these sub-basins host the largest part of Amazonian biodiversity. They could easily be conserved if no additional threats occur between now and 2050. |
| Keywords: | conservation scenarios freshwater biodiversity neotropics spatial prioritization |