Operationalizing ecological connectivity in spatial conservation planning with Marxan Connect

Globally, protected areas are being established to protect biodiversity and to promote ecosystem resilience. The typical spatial conservation planning process leading to the creation of these protected areas focuses on representation and replication of ecological features, often using decision support systems such as Marxan. Unfortunately, Marxan currently requires manual input or specialised scripts to explicitly consider ecological connectivity, a property critical to metapopulation persistence and resilience. "Marxan Connect" is a new open source, open access Graphical User Interface (GUI) designed to assist conservation planners in the systematic operationalization of ecological connectivity in protected area network planning. Marxan Connect is able to incorporate estimates of demographic connectivity (e.g. derived from tracking data, dispersal models, or genetics) or structural landscape connectivity (e.g. isolation by resistance). This is accomplished by calculating metapopulation-relevant connectivity metrics (e.g. eigenvector centrality) and treating those as conservation features, or using the connectivity data as a spatial dependency amongst sites to be included in the prioritization process. Marxan Connect allows a wide group of users to incorporate directional ecological connectivity into conservation plans. The least-cost conservation solutions provided by Marxan Connect, combined with ecologically relevant post-hoc testing, are more likely to support persistent and resilient metapopulations (e.g. fish stocks) and provide better protection for biodiversity than if connectivity is ignored.

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Managing nature conservation prioritization: a spatial conservation planning index approach

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management ◽

10.1080/09640568.2020.1835617 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-23

Author(s):

David Lehrer ◽

Nir Becker ◽

Pua Bar (Kutiel)

Keyword(s):

Nature Conservation ◽

Conservation Planning ◽

Conservation Prioritization ◽

Index Approach ◽

Spatial Conservation Planning

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Spatial conservation planning framework for assessing conservation opportunities in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil

Applied Geography ◽

10.1016/j.apgeog.2014.06.013 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 53 ◽

pp. 369-376 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Ana Paula Giorgi ◽

Corey Rovzar ◽

Kelsey S. Davis ◽

Trevon Fuller ◽

Wolfgang Buermann ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Atlantic Forest ◽

Conservation Planning ◽

Planning Framework ◽

Spatial Conservation Planning

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Navigating the complexities of coordinated conservation along the river Nile

Science Advances ◽

10.1126/sciadv.aau7668 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 5 (4) ◽

pp. eaau7668 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

J. R. Allan ◽

N. Levin ◽

K. R. Jones ◽

S. Abdullah ◽

J. Hongoh ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Conservation Planning ◽

River Nile ◽

African Countries ◽

Conservation Action ◽

Priority Areas ◽

Conservation Costs ◽

Spatial Conservation Planning ◽

Conservation Plan ◽

Collaborative Conservation ◽

Business As Usual

The river Nile flows across 11 African countries, supporting millions of human livelihoods, and holding globally important biodiversity and endemism yet remains underprotected. No basin-wide spatial conservation planning has been attempted to date, and the importance of coordinated conservation planning for the Nile’s biodiversity remains unknown. We address these gaps by creating a basin-wide conservation plan for the Nile’s freshwater fish. We identify priority areas for conservation action and compare cross-boundary collaboration scenarios for achieving biodiversity conservation targets, accounting for river connectivity. We found that collaborative conservation efforts are crucial for reducing conservation costs, saving 34% of costs compared to an uncoordinated, business-as-usual scenario. While most Nile basin countries benefit from coordinating conservation planning, costs and benefits are unequally distributed. We identify “hot spots” consistently selected as conservation priority areas across all collaboration scenarios, and provide a framework for improving return on conservation investment for large and complex river systems globally.

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Multicriterion trade-offs and synergies for spatial conservation planning

Journal of Applied Ecology ◽

10.1111/1365-2664.12803 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 54 (3) ◽

pp. 903-913 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Richard M. Gunton ◽

Charles J. Marsh ◽

Sylvain Moulherat ◽

Anne-Kathleen Malchow ◽

Greta Bocedi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Conservation Planning ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Spatial Conservation Planning

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Spatial conservation planning under climate change: Using species distribution modeling to assess priority for adaptive management of Fagus crenata in Japan

Journal for Nature Conservation ◽

10.1016/j.jnc.2013.06.003 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 21 (6) ◽

pp. 406-413 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Katsuhiro Nakao ◽

Motoki Higa ◽

Ikutaro Tsuyama ◽

Tetsuya Matsui ◽

Masahiro Horikawa ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Adaptive Management ◽

Species Distribution ◽

Conservation Planning ◽

Species Distribution Modeling ◽

Fagus Crenata ◽

Distribution Modeling ◽

Spatial Conservation Planning

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Multi-taxa spatial conservation planning reveals similar priorities between taxa and improved protected area representation with climate change

Biodiversity and Conservation ◽

10.1007/s10531-022-02357-1 ◽

2022 ◽

Author(s):

Rob Critchlow ◽

Charles A. Cunningham ◽

Humphrey Q. P. Crick ◽

Nicholas A. Macgregor ◽

Michael D. Morecroft ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Conservation Planning ◽

Protected Area ◽

Global Climate ◽

Species Conservation ◽

Conservation Areas ◽

Indicator Taxa ◽

Network Effectiveness ◽

Spatial Conservation Planning ◽

Richness Patterns

AbstractProtected area (PA) networks have in the past been constructed to include all major habitats, but have often been developed through consideration of only a few indicator taxa or across restricted areas, and rarely account for global climate change. Systematic conservation planning (SCP) aims to improve the efficiency of biodiversity conservation, particularly when addressing internationally agreed protection targets. We apply SCP in Great Britain (GB) using the widest taxonomic coverage to date (4,447 species), compare spatial prioritisation results across 18 taxa and use projected future (2080) distributions to assess the potential impact of climate change on PA network effectiveness. Priority conservation areas were similar among multiple taxa, despite considerable differences in spatial species richness patterns; thus systematic prioritisations based on indicator taxa for which data are widely available are still useful for conservation planning. We found that increasing the number of protected hectads by 2% (to reach the 2020 17% Aichi target) could have a disproportionate positive effect on species protected, with an increase of up to 17% for some taxa. The PA network in GB currently under-represents priority species but, if the potential future distributions under climate change are realised, the proportion of species distributions protected by the current PA network may increase, because many PAs are in northern and higher altitude areas. Optimal locations for new PAs are particularly concentrated in southern and upland areas of GB. This application of SCP shows how a small addition to an existing PA network could have disproportionate benefits for species conservation.

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Spatial conservation planning with ecological and economic feedback effects

Biological Conservation ◽

10.1016/j.biocon.2019.06.015 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 237 ◽

pp. 308-316

Author(s):

Cecilia Larrosa ◽

Luis R. Carrasco ◽

Leandro R. Tambosi ◽

Cristina Banks-Leite ◽

E.J. Milner-Gulland

Keyword(s):

Conservation Planning ◽

Feedback Effects ◽

Spatial Conservation Planning

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Assessing the efficiency of protected areas to represent biodiversity: a small island case study

Environmental Conservation ◽

10.1017/s037689291600014x ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 43 (4) ◽

pp. 337-349 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

MARTA VERGÍLIO ◽

CATARINA FONSECA ◽

HELENA CALADO ◽

PAULO A.V. BORGES ◽

RUI BENTO ELIAS ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Protected Areas ◽

Conservation Planning ◽

Conservation Status ◽

Small Island ◽

Distribution Data ◽

Current Conservation ◽

Distribution Modelling ◽

Spatial Conservation Planning ◽

Species Groups

SUMMARYProtected areas (PAs) have been selected using either subjective or objective criteria applied to an extremely limited subset of biodiversity. Improved availability of species distribution data, better statistical tools to predict species distributions and algorithms to optimize spatial conservation planning allow many impediments to be overcome, particularly on small islands. This study analyses whether 219 species are adequately protected by PAs on Pico Island (the Azores, Portugal), and if they are as efficient as possible, maximizing species protection while minimizing costs. We performed distribution modelling of species’ potential distributions, proposed individual conservation targets (considering the context of each species in the archipelago and their current conservation status) to determine the efficiency of current PAs in meeting such targets and identify alternative or complementary areas relevant for conservation. Results showed that current PAs do not cover all taxa, leaving out important areas for conservation. We demonstrate that by using optimization algorithms it is possible to include most species groups in spatial conservation planning in the Azores with the current resources. With increasing availability of data and methods, this approach could be readily extended to other islands and regions with high endemism levels.

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