Incorporating consumer–resource spatial interactions in reserve design

The persistence of species in reserves depends in large part on the persistence of functional ecological interactions. Despite their importance, however, ecological interactions have not yet been explicitly incorporated into conservation prioritization methods. We develop here a general method for incorporating consumer–resource interactions into spatial reserve design. This method protects spatial consumer–resource interactions by protecting areas that maintain the connectivity between the distribution of consumers and resources. We illustrate our method with a conservation planning case study of a mammalian predator, American marten (Martes americana), and its two primary prey species, Red-backed vole (Clethrionomys rutilus) and Deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus). The conservation goal was to identify a reserve for marten that comprised 12% of a forest management unit in the boreal forest in Québec, Canada. We compared reserves developed using analysis variants that utilized different levels of information about predator and prey habitat distributions, species-specific connectivity requirements, and interaction connectivity requirements. The inclusion of consumer–resource interactions in reserve-selection resulted in spatially aggregated reserves that maintained local habitat quality for the species. This spatial aggregation was not induced by applying a qualitative penalty for the boundary length of the reserve, but rather was a direct consequence of modelling the spatial needs of the interacting consumer and resources. Our method for maintaining connectivity between consumers and their resources within reserves can be applied even under the most extreme cases of either complete spatial overlap or complete spatial segregation of consumer–resource distributions. The method has been made available via public software.     

Integrating Biological and Social Values When Prioritizing Places for Biodiversity Conservation

The consideration of information on social values in conjunction with biological data is critical for achieving both socially acceptable and scientifically defensible conservation planning outcomes. However, the influence of social values on spatial conservation priorities has received limited attention and is poorly understood. We present an approach that incorporates quantitative data on social values for conservation and social preferences for development into spatial conservation planning. We undertook a public participation GIS survey to spatially represent social values and development preferences and used species distribution models for 7 threatened fauna species to represent biological values. These spatially explicit data were simultaneously included in the conservation planning software Zonation to examine how conservation priorities changed with the inclusion of social data. Integrating spatially explicit information about social values and development preferences with biological data produced prioritizations that differed spatially from the solution based on only biological data. However, the integrated solutions protected a similar proportion of the species’ distributions, indicating that Zonation effectively combined the biological and social data to produce socially feasible conservation solutions of approximately equivalent biological value. We were able to identify areas of the landscape where synergies and conflicts between different value sets are likely to occur. Identification of these synergies and conflicts will allow decision makers to target communication strategies to specific areas and ensure effective community engagement and positive conservation outcomes. Integración de Valores Biológicos y Sociales al Priorizar Sitios para la Conservación de la Biodiversidad     

广东的地质灾害与地质环境

在自然环境和人为因素影响下，广东的地质灾害种类主要有地震、滑坡、崩塌、水土流失、岩溶塌陷、坑道突水、软土变形、地面沉降、地裂缝、水库诱发地震、河港淤积、地方性氟中毒等。根据地理分带性、区域地壳运动、岩土特征、地质灾害组合类型及发育程度，将全省地质环境划分为三个区、七个亚区，对灾害发展趋势进行预测，并提出了防灾减灾对策。     

Use of demand for and spatial flow of ecosystem services to identify priority areas

Policies and research increasingly focus on the protection of ecosystem services (ESs) through priority‐area conservation. Priority areas for ESs should be identified based on ES capacity and ES demand and account for the connections between areas of ES capacity and demand (flow) resulting in areas of unique demand–supply connections (flow zones). We tested ways to account for ES demand and flow zones to identify priority areas in the European Union. We mapped the capacity and demand of a global (carbon sequestration), a regional (flood regulation), and 3 local ESs (air quality, pollination, and urban leisure). We used Zonation software to identify priority areas for ESs based on 6 tests: with and without accounting for ES demand and 4 tests that accounted for the effect of ES flow zone. There was only 37.1% overlap between the 25% of priority areas that encompassed the most ESs with and without accounting for ES demand. The level of ESs maintained in the priority areas increased from 23.2% to 57.9% after accounting for ES demand, especially for ESs with a small flow zone. Accounting for flow zone had a small effect on the location of priority areas and level of ESs maintained but resulted in fewer flow zones without ES maintained relative to ignoring flow zones. Accounting for demand and flow zones enhanced representation and distribution of ESs with local to regional flow zones without large trade‐offs relative to the global ES. We found that ignoring ES demand led to the identification of priority areas in remote regions where benefits from ES capacity to society were small. Incorporating ESs in conservation planning should therefore always account for ES demand to identify an effective priority network for ESs.     

Identifying conservation priorities for threatened Eastern Himalayan mammals

To augment mammal conservation in the Eastern Himalayan region, we assessed the resident 255 terrestrial mammal species and identified the 50 most threatened species based on conservation status, endemism, range size, and evolutionary distinctiveness. By using the spatial analysis package letsR and the complementarity core‐area method in the conservation planning software Zonation, we assessed the current efficacy of their protection and identified priority conservation areas by comparing protected areas (PAs), land cover, and global ecoregion 2017 maps at a 100 × 100 m spatial scale. The 50 species that were most threatened, geographically restricted, and evolutionarily distinct faced a greater extinction risk than globally nonthreatened and wide‐ranging species and species with several close relatives. Small, medium‐sized, and data‐deficient species faced extinction from inadequate protection in PAs relative to wide‐ranging charismatic species. There was a mismatch between current PA distribution and priority areas for conservation of the 50 most endangered species. To protect these species, the skewed regional PA distribution would require expansion. Where possible, new PAs and transboundary reserves in the 35 priority areas we identified should be established. There are adequate remaining natural areas in which to expand current Eastern Himalayan PAs. Consolidation and expansion of PAs in the EH requires strengthening national and regional transboundary collaboration, formulating comprehensive regional land‐use plans, diversifying conservation funding, and enhancing information sharing through a consolidated regional database.     

Quantifying trade-offs between ecological gains,economic costs,and landowners’ preferences in boreal mire protection

Private land often encompasses biodiversity features of high conservation value, but its protection is not straightforward. Commonly, landowners’ perspectives are rightfully allowed to influence conservation actions. This unlikely comes without consequences on biodiversity or other aspects such as economic considerations, but these consequences are rarely quantitatively considered in decision-making. In the context of boreal mire protection in Finland, we report how acknowledging landowners’ resistance to protection changes the combination of mires selected to conservation compared to ignoring landowners’ opinions. Using spatial prioritization, we quantify trade-offs arising between the amount of landowners’ resistance, protected biodiversity, and financial costs in different conservation scenarios. Results show that the trade-offs cannot be fully avoided. Nevertheless, we show that the systematic examination of the trade-offs opens up options to alleviate them. This can promote the evaluation of different conservation policy outcomes, enabling better-informed conservation decisions and more effective and socially sustainable allocation of conservation resources.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13280-021-01530-0.     

A quantitative technique for estimating the boundaries of wetlands from vegetation data

There is an increasing need for the accurate delineation of wetlands for planning and conservation purposes. We propose a method based on vegetation zonation which requires three steps. The first step is to examine transects crossing the transition zone from marsh to upland. In each transect the uppermost occurrence of each plant species is located relative to a fixed survey point. The second step is to determine which of these species are hydrophytes (wetland plants). This is assessed using the presence or absence of morphological and physiological adaptations for growing in wet environments. Alternatively, a literature search using botanical manuals may suffice. The third step determines the upper limit of the wetland by finding the upper limit of the uppermost hydrophyte in each transect, and taking the mean value of these over all transects. This mean defines the boundary of the wetland. The method is illustrated using two marshes along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River in Ontario.     

Conservation Planning in Forest Landscapes of Fennoscandia and an Approach to the Challenge of Countdown 2010

Abstract:  Effective management of biodiversity in production landscapes requires a conservation approach that acknowledges the complexity of ecological and cultural systems in time and space. Fennoscandia has experienced major loss of forest biodiversity caused by intensive forestry. Therefore, the Countdown 2010 initiative to halt the loss of biodiversity in Europe is highly relevant to forest management in this part of the continent. As a contribution to meeting the challenge posed by Countdown 2010, we developed a spatially explicit conservation-planning exercise that used regional knowledge on forest biodiversity to provide support for managers attempting to halt further loss of biological diversity in the region. We used current data on the distribution of 169 species (including 68 red-listed species) representing different forest habitats and ecologies along with forest data within the frame of modern conservation software to devise a map of priority areas for conservation. The top 10% of priority areas contained over 75% of red-listed species locations and 41% of existing protected forest areas, but only 58% of these top priorities overlapped with core areas identified previously in a regional strategy that used more qualitative methods. We argue for aggregating present and future habitat value of single management units to landscape and regional scales to identify potential bottlenecks in habitat availability linked to landscape dynamics. To address the challenge of Countdown 2010, a general framework for forest conservation planning in Fennoscandia needs to cover different conservation issues, tools, and data needs.