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Reserve Design and Selecting Areas to Protect

Sam Hopkins

Biodiversity and Conservation Biology

An Optional Graphiccan go here

Nature reserves around the world need to contain most of the worlds biota

The area of land to conserve is picked for a number of reasons

Diversity

Rarity

Naturalness

They can also serve a number of other functions

Hunting

Hiking

Money making

Nature reserves Nature reserves 11

The actual size of the piece of land that is being protected is very important

E.g. – Mammal extinctions 3

Large reserves allow the re-colonisation from other parts of the reserve 2

Large reserves support a fuller diversity and interactions 4

Many species have a minimum area requirement but not often is there a maximum area requirement 5

Reserves must be worthwhile not just large pieces of unwanted land 7

Ways of selecting reserves - sizeWays of selecting reserves - size

An argument for large reserves is seen on Borro Colorado Island, Panama

Made reserve in 1923

Contains birds that will not fly over water

Spotted antbird (Hylophalx naeviodes)

Bicolored antbird (Gymnopithys bicolor)

Ocellated antbird (Phaenostictus mcleannani)

Ways of selecting reserves – Ways of selecting reserves – size size 88

Amazon Rainforest

Large problem in guarding the reserves

Answer may be to place whole watersheds in a single reserve

This would limit the access to the reserve

It would also conserve all of the aquatic resources in one water system

Ways of selecting reserves – Ways of selecting reserves – size size 99

Other studies have suggested that many small reserves would be of better conservation value

Simberloff and Abele (1976) 10

Studied red mangrove islands

Split islands into smaller archipelago

Resulting islands had more species

Ways of selecting reserves - Ways of selecting reserves - sizesize

Erwin et al. (1995) 11

Studied water birds on islands in the Florida Keys

Birds did better on the medium size of the smaller islands

Seen in the White Heron

Ways of selecting reserves - sizeWays of selecting reserves - size

Two smaller reserves may be more beneficial for genetic conservation

These two reserves must have occasional migrations between the two populations

Sustains alleles and heterozygotes for a longer period

Ways of selecting reserves – Ways of selecting reserves – size size 1212

In practice it is not always possible to have the reserve size that is necessary

In Eastern North America the requirement for terrestrial mammals is 5037 km2

In practice of the 2355 reserves

14 are greater the 2700 km2

8 are greater than 5037 km2

3 are greater than 13,296 km2

Ways of selecting reserves – Ways of selecting reserves – size size 1313

Each reserve will have an edge that abuts to the degraded matrix 14

The park perimeter to area ratio needs to be checked

Smaller reserves will have more edge 2

Irregularly shaped reserves will promote edge species but will cause a decline in number of interior species 1

Heavily used roads can act as another edge 15

Ways of selecting reserves - shapeWays of selecting reserves - shape

Reserve planners need to compromise between a number of different factors

Computer programs can help to make informed decisions

Quantitative decision approach:

Indexing – potential reserves are scored against defined criteria

Iterative techniques – used to assemble combinations of reserves

Integer planning – often only use one criteria at a time

Ways of selecting reserves – help from Ways of selecting reserves – help from computers computers 11

For example – Multiobjctive planning (MOP) and Simple multiattribute rating technique (SMART)

Used in Nova Scotia, Canada

Five forest nature reserves are needed to complement the two existing national parks

The suggested reserves were evaluated on:

Connectedness – inverse of distance between reserves

Maximise the total area of the reserve system

Maximise the number of rare plant species

Ways of selecting reserves – help from Ways of selecting reserves – help from computers computers 11

No single taxon will be completely effective as a reserve selection indicator

It is estimated that to conserve a viable elephant population for 1000 years it would take 1000 miles2 of land 16

Conserving this piece of land may protect other species

This may not always be the ideal land for conserving large numbers of endangered species if it is the elephants alone that are being concentrated on

Plants are probably the better umbrella taxon as they need more area e.g. 17

In San Diego canyons

To preserve all of the bird species 2 canyons are needed

To preserve all of the plant species 10 canyons are needed

Ways of selecting reserves – Ways of selecting reserves – Umbrella speciesUmbrella species

A biodiversity hotspot is an area of land where there is increased species richness, high numbers of endemic species and high numbers of rare species 18

It is a way of creating priorities for conservation

25 hotspots suggested by Myers et al. (2000) 19 20

These hotspots contain at least 0.5%of the world plant species as endemics 19

Initiative being supported by conservation international 21

One of these hotspots is the cape floristic region

Ways of selecting reserves – Ways of selecting reserves – Hot SpotsHot Spots

Cape floristic region – area of 87,892 km2

70% of the 9000 plant species present are endemic

Also important for birds, mammals and other vertebrates

In the area 10.1% is already reserves but this is mainly in the upland areas

The report by Cowling et al. (2003) suggested that another 40,000 km2 be protected in some way

This is trying to take into account representativeness and persistence

They warn that there will probably not be enough money to carry out the full plan and that more biodiversity will be lost as the plan is being implemented

Ways of selecting reserves – Ways of selecting reserves –

Hot Spots Hot Spots 2222

One of the problems in using these hotspots of biodiversity is that hotspots for different species rarely overlap 23

There is probably a low correlation between high species richness and high endemicity 18

Conserving hotspots may miss a species vital to conservation 24

Ways of selecting reserves – Ways of selecting reserves – Hot SpotsHot Spots

Wildlife CorridorsWildlife Corridors

Wildlife corridors have been talked about in

the fragmentation lecture, chapter 2

They should link two fragments of

habitat that are being conserved

This is meant to allow for local

extinctions and re-colonisation

They should also allow for the gene flow that

was discussed when trying to keep genetic

diversity

Wildlife Corridors –Wildlife Corridors – working working

Fahrig and Merriam

(1985) – populations of

the white footed mouse 25

Aars and Ims (1999) –

populations of voles 26

Wildlife Corridors – not workingWildlife Corridors – not working

Review by Mann and Plummer (1993)

Problems

Fire

Disease

Introduced species

cost

ConclusionsConclusions

It is agreed that biodiversity must be

conserved

The problem comes when decisions have to

be made on what to conserve

Reserve design is part of this problem as

different reserve designs will meet the needs

of different conservation goals

ReferencesReferences1. Rothley, K. D. (1999). Designing bioreserve networks to satisfy multiple, conflicting demands.

Ecological Applications 9: 741-750.)

2. Higgs, A. (1981) Island biogeography theory and nature reserve design. Journal of Biogeography 8: 117-124

3. Newmark, W. D. (1995) Extinction of mammal populations in Western North American National Parks Conservation Biology 9: 512-526

4. Schwartz, M. (1999) Choosing the appropriate scale of reserves for conservation Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 30: 83-108

5. Diamond, J. M. (1976) Island Biogeography and conservation: Strategy and limitations. Science 193: 1027-1029

6. Terborgh, J. (1976) Island Biogeography and Conservation: Strategy and Limitations Science 193: 1027-1029

7. Terborgh, J. (1974) Preservation of natural diversity: The problem of extinction prone species. Bioscience 24:715-722

8. Willis, E. (1974) Populations and local extinctions of birds on Borro Colorado Island, Panama. Ecological Monographs 44: 153-169

9. Peres, C. A. and Terborgh, J. W. (1995). Amazonian Nature Reserves: An analysis of the defensibility status of existing conservation units and design criteria for the future. Conservation Biology 9: 34-46

10. Simberloff, D. and Abele, L. (1976) Island Biogeography theory and conservation practice. Science 191: 285-286

ReferencesReferences11. Erwin et al. (1995) The value and vulnerability of small estuarine islands for conserving

metapopulations of breeding water birds. Biological Conservation 71: 187-191

12. Boecklen, W. (1986) Optimal design of nature reserves: Consequences of genetic drift. Biological Conservation 38: 323-338

13. Gurd, D. B. Nudds, T. D. and Rivard, D. H. (2000) Conservation of mammals in Eastern North American wildlife reserves: how small is too small? Conservation Biology 15: 1355-1363

14. Buechner, M. (1987) Conservation in insular parks: simulation models of factors affecting the movement of animals across park boundaries. Biological Conservation 41: 57-76

15. Schonewald-Cox, C. (1988) Boundaries in the protection of nature reserves: translating multidisciplinary knowledge into practical conservation. Bioscience 38: 480-486

16. Armbruster, P. and Lande, R. (1993) A population viability analysis for African Elephants (Loxodonta africana): How big should reserve be? Conservation Biology 7: 602-610

17. Ryti, R. T. (1992) Effect of the focal taxon on the selection of nature reserves. Ecological Applications 2: 404-410

18. Ceballos, G. et al. (1998). Assessing conservation priorities in mega diverse Mexico: Mammalian diversity, endemicity and endangerment. Ecological Applications 8: 8-17

19. Myers, N. et al. (2000) Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature 403: 853-858

20. Jepson, P. and Canney, S. (2001) Biodiversity hotspots: Hot for what? Global Ecology and Biogeography 10: 225-227

ReferencesReferences21. Dalton, R. (2000) Ecologists back blueprint to save biodiversity hotspots. Nature 406: 926

22. Cowling et al. (2003) A conservation plan for a global biodiversity hotspot – the Cape Floristic Region, South Africa. Biological Conservation 112: 191-216

23. Dobson et al (1997). Geographic distribution of endangered species in the United States. Science 275: 550-553

24. Reyers, B. et al. (2000) Complementartiy as a biodiversity indicator strategy. Proceedings: Biological Sciences 267: 505-513

25. Fahrig and Merriam (1985) Habitat patch connectivity and population survival. Ecology 66: 1762- 1768

26. Aars and Ims (1999) The effect of habitat corridors on rates of transfer and interbreeding between vole demes. Ecology 80: 1648- 1655

27. Mann and Plummer (1993) The high cost of biodiversity. Science 260: 1868- 1871