Value of protected areas to avian persistence across 20 years of climate and land-use change |
| |
Authors: | Michelle A. Peach Jonathan B. Cohen Jacqueline L. Frair Benjamin Zuckerberg Patrick Sullivan William F. Porter Corey Lang |
| |
Affiliation: | 1. Department of Environment and Forest Biology, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, 1 Forestry Drive, Syracuse, NY 13210, U.S.A.;2. Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin Madison, 1630 Linden Drive, Rm 213, Madison, WI 53706, U.S.A.;3. Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University, 111B Fernow Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853, U.S.A.;4. Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, 480 Wilson Road, East Lansing, MI 48824, U.S.A.;5. Environment and Natural Resource Economics, University of Rhode Island, 1 Greenhouse Road, Kingston, RI 02881, U.S.A. |
| |
Abstract: | Establishing protected areas, where human activities and land cover changes are restricted, is among the most widely used strategies for biodiversity conservation. This practice is based on the assumption that protected areas buffer species from processes that drive extinction. However, protected areas can maintain biodiversity in the face of climate change and subsequent shifts in distributions have been questioned. We evaluated the degree to which protected areas influenced colonization and extinction patterns of 97 avian species over 20 years in the northeastern United States. We fitted single-visit dynamic occupancy models to data from Breeding Bird Atlases to quantify the magnitude of the effect of drivers of local colonization and extinction (e.g., climate, land cover, and amount of protected area) in heterogeneous landscapes that varied in the amount of area under protection. Colonization and extinction probabilities improved as the amount of protected area increased, but these effects were conditional on landscape context and species characteristics. In this forest-dominated region, benefits of additional land protection were greatest when both forest cover in a grid square and amount of protected area in neighboring grid squares were low. Effects did not vary with species’ migratory habit or conservation status. Increasing the amounts of land protection benefitted the range margins species but not the core range species. The greatest improvements in colonization and extinction rates accrued for forest birds relative to open-habitat or generalist species. Overall, protected areas stemmed extinction more than they promoted colonization. Our results indicate that land protection remains a viable conservation strategy despite changing habitat and climate, as protected areas both reduce the risk of local extinction and facilitate movement into new areas. Our findings suggest conservation in the face of climate change favors creation of new protected areas over enlarging existing ones as the optimal strategy to reduce extinction and provide stepping stones for the greatest number of species. |
| |
Keywords: | biodiversity breeding bird atlas conservation planning dynamic occupancy modeling species distributions atlas de aves reproductoras biodiversidad distribución de especies modelación de ocupación dinámica planeación de la conservación 生物多样性 繁殖鸟类图谱 保护规划 动态占有模型 物种分布 |
|
|