Measuring and incorporating vulnerability into conservation planning

Conservation planning is the process of locating and designing conservation areas to promote the persistence of biodiversity in situ. To do this, conservation areas must be able to mitigate at least some of the proximate threats to biodiversity. Information on threatening processes and the relative vulnerability of areas and natural features to these processes is therefore crucial for effective conservation planning. However, measuring and incorporating vulnerability into conservation planning have been problematic. We develop a conceptual framework of the role of vulnerability assessments in conservation planning and propose a definition of vulnerability that incorporates three dimensions: exposure, intensity, and impact. We review and categorize methods for assessing the vulnerability of areas and the features they contain and identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of each broad approach, Our review highlights the need for further development and evaluation of approaches to assess vulnerability and for comparisons of their relative effectiveness.

A new method for conservation planning for the persistence of multiple species

Although the aim of conservation planning is the persistence of biodiversity, current methods trade-off ecological realism at a species level in favour of including multiple species and landscape features. For conservation planning to be relevant, the impact of landscape configuration on population processes and the viability of species needs to be considered. We present a novel method for selecting reserve systems that maximize persistence across multiple species, subject to a conservation budget. We use a spatially explicit metapopulation model to estimate extinction risk, a function of the ecology of the species and the amount, quality and configuration of habitat. We compare our new method with more traditional, area-based reserve selection methods, using a ten-species case study, and find that the expected loss of species is reduced 20-fold. Unlike previous methods, we avoid designating arbitrary weightings between reserve size and configuration; rather, our method is based on population processes and is grounded in ecological theory.

Tradeoffs of different types of species occurrence data for use in systematic conservation planning

Data on the occurrence of species are widely used to inform the design of reserve networks. These data contain commission errors (when a species is mistakenly thought to be present) and omission errors (when a species is mistakenly thought to be absent), and the rates of the two types of error are inversely related. Point locality data can minimize commission errors, but those obtained from museum collections are generally sparse, suffer from substantial spatial bias and contain large omission errors. Geographic ranges generate large commission errors because they assume homogenous species distributions. Predicted distribution data make explicit inferences on species occurrence and their commission and omission errors depend on model structure, on the omission of variables that determine species distribution and on data resolution. Omission errors lead to identifying networks of areas for conservation action that are smaller than required and centred on known species occurrences, thus affecting the comprehensiveness, representativeness and efficiency of selected areas. Commission errors lead to selecting areas not relevant to conservation, thus affecting the representativeness and adequacy of reserve networks. Conservation plans should include an estimation of commission and omission errors in underlying species data and explicitly use this information to influence conservation planning outcomes.

Biodiversity conservation planning tools: Present status and challenges for the future

Species extinctions and the deterioration of other biodiversity features worldwide have led to the adoption of systematic conservation planning in many regions of the world. As a consequence, various software tools for conservation planning have been developed over the past twenty years. These, tools implement algorithms designed to identify conservation area networks for the representation and persistence of biodiversity features. Budgetary, ethical, and other sociopolitical constraints dictate that the prioritized sites represent biodiversity with minimum impact on human interests. Planning tools are typically also used to satisfy these criteria. This chapter reviews both the concepts and technical choices that underlie the development of these tools. Conservation planning problems can be formulated as optimization problems, and we evaluate the suitability of different algorithms for their solution. Finally, we also review some key issues associated with the use of these tools, such as computational efficiency, the effectiveness of taxa and abiotic parameters at choosing surrogates for biodiversity, the process of setting explicit targets of representation for biodiversity surrogates, and

Modelling pre-clearing vegetation distribution using GIS-integrated statistical, ecological and data models: A case study from the wet tropics of Northeastern Australia

Traditional vegetation mapping methods use high cost, labour-intensive aerial photography interpretation. This approach can be subjective and is limited by factors such as the extent of remnant vegetation, and the differing scale and quality of aerial photography over time. An alternative approach is proposed which integrates a data model, a statistical model and an ecological model using sophisticated Geographic Information Systems (GIS) techniques and rule-based systems to support fine-scale vegetation community modelling. This approach is based on a more realistic representation of vegetation patterns with transitional gradients from one vegetation community to another. Arbitrary, though often unrealistic, sharp boundaries can be imposed on the model by the application of statistical methods. This GIS-integrated multivariate approach is applied to the problem of vegetation mapping in the complex vegetation communities of the Innisfail Lowlands in the Wet Tropics bioregion of Northeastern Australia. The paper presents the full cycle of this vegetation modelling approach including sampling sites, variable selection, model selection, model implementation, internal model assessment, model prediction assessments, models integration of discrete vegetation community models to generate a composite pre-clearing vegetation map, independent data set model validation and model prediction's scale assessments. An accurate pre-clearing vegetation map of the Innisfail Lowlands was generated (0.83r(2)) through GIS integration of 28 separate statistical models. This modelling approach has good potential for wider application, including provision of. vital information for conservation planning and management; a scientific basis for rehabilitation of disturbed and cleared areas; a viable method for the production of adequate vegetation maps for conservation and forestry planning of poorly-studied areas. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.