Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Conservation planning in a subdivided world

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Biodiversity and Conservation Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The identification of priority areas for conservation tends to take place over two fundamentally different spatial extents. First, there are analyses conducted at global or large biogeographic extents. Second, there are those conducted within geopolitical units. In this paper we show, using data for North American mammals, that spatial extent can have a profound effect both on the number and locations of the priority areas identified to attain a particular conservation goal. For example, applying the same selection target to obtaining just a single representation of each species, the numbers of areas required increased by approximately an order of magnitude between treating North America as a single unit and treating the provinces separately. Although this scenario is undoubtedly extremely simplistic, such large differences are maintained with greater occurrence targets. Balancing the benefits and disadvantages of conservation planning at different spatial extents is not straightforward. However, a multi-scale approach that exploits the respective benefits and downplays the disadvantages when focussing on smaller or larger extents would seem valuable.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abbitt RJF, Scott JM, Wilcove DS (2000) The geography of vulnerability: incorporating species geography and human development patterns into conservation planning. Biol Conserv 96:169–175

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Andelman SJ, Willig MR (2003) Present patterns and future prospects for biodiversity in the Western Hemisphere. Ecol Lett 6:818–824

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arita HT, Rodríguez-Tapia G (2004) Patrones geográficos de diversidad de los mamíferos terrestres de América del Norte. Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Base de datos SNIB-Conabio proyecto Q068. México, D.F.

  • Arita HT, Figueroa F, Frisch A, Rodriguez P, Santos-del-Prado K (1997) Geographic range size and the conservation of Mexican mammals. Cons Biol 11:92–100

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arthur JL, Hachey M, Sahr K, Huso M, Kiester AR (1997) Finding all optimal solutions to the reserve site selection problem: formulation and computational analysis. Environ Ecol Stat 4:153–165

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berger J (2003) Is it acceptable to let a species go extinct in national parks? Cons Biol 17:1451–1454

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • BirdLife International (2004) Birds in the European Union: a status assessment. BirdLife International. Wageningen, The Netherlands

  • Bonn A, Rodrigues ASL, Gaston KJ (2002) Threatened and endemic species: are they good indicators of patterns of biodiversity? Ecol Lett 5:733–741

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brooks T, Balmford A, Burgess N et al (2001) Toward a blueprint for conservation in Africa. BioScience 51:613–623

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bryant D, Nielsen D, Tangley L (1997) The Last Frontier Forests: ecosystems and economies on the edge. In: World Resources Institute, Washington, DC. Available at: http://www.wri.org/wri/ffi/lff-eng/index.html

  • Cavieres LA, Arroyo MTK, Posadas P et al (2002) Identification of priority areas for conservation in an arid zone: application of parsimony analysis of endemicity in the vascular flora of the Antofagasta region, northern Chile. Biod Conser 11:1301–1311

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ceballos G, Ehrlich P (2002) Mammal population losses and the extinction crisis. Science 296:904–907

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ceballos G, Arroyo-Cabrales J, Medellín RA (2002). The mammals of Mexico: composition, distribution, and conservation status. Occas Pap Tex Tech Mus 218:1–28

    Google Scholar 

  • Dobson AP, Bradshaw AD, Baker AJM (1997) Hopes for the future: restoration ecology and conservation biology. Science 277:515–522

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Erasmus BFN, Freitag S, Gaston KJ et al (1999) Scale and conservation planning in the real world. Proc R Soc B 266:315–319

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fjeldså J, Rahbek C (1998) Continent-wide conservation priorities and diversification processes. In: Mace GM, Balmford A, Ginsberg JR (eds) Conservation in a changing world. Cambridge University Press, pp 139–160

  • Hall R (1981) The mammals of North America. John Wiley and Sons, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Hunter ML, Hutchinson A (1994) The virtues and shortcomings of parochialism—conserving species that are locally rare, but globally common. Conser Biol 8:1163–1165

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ILOG (2001) CPLEX 7.1.™. In: ILOG, Gentillyx, New York

  • Jackson SF, Kershaw M, Gaston KJ (2004) The performance of procedures for selecting conservation areas: waterbirds in the UK. Biol Conser 118:261–270

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lombard AT (1995) The problems with multi-species conservation: do hotspots, ideal reserves and existing reserves coincide? South Africa. J Zool 30:145–163

    Google Scholar 

  • Margules CR, Pressey RL (2000) Systematic conservation planning. Nature 405:243–253

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mittermeier RA, Myers N, Thomsen JB et al (1998) Biodiversity hotspots and major tropical wilderness areas: approaches to setting conservation priorities. Conserv Biol 12:516–520

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mittermeier RA, Mittermeier CG, Brooks TM et al (2003) Wilderness and biodiversity conservation. PNAS 100:10309–10313

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Myers N, Mittermeier RA, Mittermeier CG et al (2000) Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature 403:853–858

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Olson D, Dinerstein E (1998) The Global 200: a representation approach to conserving the Earth’s distinctive ecoregions. World Wildlife Fund, Washington DC

    Google Scholar 

  • Olson DM, Dinerstein E, Wikramanayake ED et al (2001) Terrestrial ecoregions of the world: a new map of life on Earth. Bioscience 51:933–938

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pérez-Arteaga A, Jackson SF, Carrera E et al (2005) Priority sites for wildfowls conservation in Mexico. Anim Conserv 8:41–50

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pressey RL (1999) Systematic conservation planning for the real world. Parks 9:1–6

    Google Scholar 

  • Pressey RL, Nicholls AO (1989a) Efficiency in conservation evaluation: scoring versus iterative approaches. Biol Conserv 52:199–219

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pressey RL, Nicholls AO (1989b) Application of a numerical algorithm to the selection of reserves in semi-arid New South Wales. Biol Conserv 50:263–277

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pressey RL, Humphries CJ, Margules CR et al (1993) Beyond opportunism: key principles for systematic reserve selection. TREE 8:124–129

    Google Scholar 

  • Pressey RL, Possingham HP, Day JR (1997) Effectiveness of alternative heuristic algorithms for identifying indicative minimum requirements for conservation reserves. Biol Conserv 80:207–219

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ramsar Bureau (1999) People and wetlands: the vital link. 7th Meeting of the conference of the contracting parties to the convention on Wetlands (Ramsar, Iran, 1971), San Jose, Costa Rica, 10–18 May 1999

  • Reid FA (1997) A Field guide to the mammals of Central America and southeast Mexico. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Reyers B (2004) Incorporating anthropogenic threats into evaluations of regional biodiversity and prioritisation areas in the Limpopo Province, South Africa. Biol Conserv 118:521–531

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roberts CM, McClean CJ, Veron JEN, Hawkins JP et al (2002) Marine biodiversity hotspots and conservation priorities for tropical reefs. Science 295:1280–1284

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Rodrigues ASL, Gaston KJ (2002) Optimisation in reserve selection procedures—why not? Biol Conserv 107:123–129

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rodrigues ASL, Orestes-Cerdeira J, Gaston KJ (2000) Flexibility, efficiency, and accountability: adapting reserve selection algorithms to more complex conservation problems. Ecography 23:565–574

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rodrigues ASL, Andelman SJ, Bakarr MI et al (2003) Global gap analysis: towards a representative network of protected areas. In: Advances in applied biodiversity science, vol 5. Conservation International, Washington DC

  • Sanderson EW, Redford KH, Chetkiewicz CB et al (2002) Planning to save a species: the jaguar as a model. Conserv Biol 16:58–72

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stattersfield AJ, Crosby MJ, Long AJ et al (1998) Endemic bird areas of the world— priorities for biodiversity conservation. BirdLife International, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Stroud DA, Mudge GP, Pienkowski MW (1990) Protecting internationally important bird sites: a review of the EEC special protection area network in Great Britain. RSPB, Peterborough

    Google Scholar 

  • van Jaarsveld AS, Freigtag S, Chown SL et al (1998) Biodiversity assessment and conservation strategies. Sciences 279:2106–2108

    Google Scholar 

  • Warman LD, Sinclair ARE, Scudder GGE et al (2004) Sensitivity of systematic reserve selection to decisions about scale, biological data, and targets: case study from southern British Columbia. Conserv Biol 18:655–666

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Willis CK, Lombard AT, Cowling RM et al (1996) Reserve systems for limestone endemic flora of the Cape lowland fynbos: iterative versus linear programming. Biol Conserv 77:53–62

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson DE, Ruff S (1999) The Smithsonian book of North American mammals. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

Part of this work was partially supported by grants from the Mexican Commission on Biodiversity (CONABIO) and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (DGPA IN202600). We thank G. Rodríguez-Tapia and S. F. Jackson for efficient technical support, G. Guerrero and J. Uribe for help in building the database. Our manuscript was greatly improved by suggestions and comments from K.J. Gaston and S.F. Jackson. L. Cantú and B. Goettsch provided comments on draft versions of the manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Departamento Ecología y Sistemática Terrestres, Área Conservación de la Biodiversidad, Carretera Panamericana y Periférico Sur s/n., C.P. 29290, San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, México

    Luis-Bernardo Vazquez

  2. Laboratorio de Macroecología, Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Apdo. Postal 70-275, C.P. 04510, Mexico, DF, Mexico

    Pilar Rodríguez & Héctor T. Arita

Authors
  1. Luis-Bernardo Vazquez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Pilar Rodríguez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Héctor T. Arita
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luis-Bernardo Vazquez.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Vazquez, LB., Rodríguez, P. & Arita, H.T. Conservation planning in a subdivided world. Biodivers Conserv 17, 1367–1377 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-008-9320-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-008-9320-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation