Browsing by Subject "Gap analysis"

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    Are the endemic water beetles of the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands effectively protected?
    (Elsevier, 2008-05-27) Sánchez Fernández, David; Bilton, David T.; Abellán, Pedro; Ribera, Ignacio; Velasco, Josefa; Milán, Andrés; Ecología e Hidrología
    One of the most serious environmental problems is the current acceleration in the rate of species extinction associated with human activities, which is occurring particularly rapidly in freshwaters. Here we examine whether endemic water beetles are effectively protected by existing conservation measures in the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands, a region of high diversity and intense human pressure. We used an exhaustive database for aquatic beetles in the region to address such issues. Firstly, we identify the most threatened endemic taxa using a categorization system to rank species according to their conservation priority or vulnerability. Of the 120 endemic species of water beetles used in the analysis, only two (Ochthebius ferroi and Ochthebius javieri) were identified as being extremely vulnerable, 71 were highly vulnerable and 46 moderately vulnerable, with only a single species identified as having low vulnerability status. Since no Iberian species of aquatic Coleoptera has legal protection, the only conservation measure available for these species is the extent to which they occur in protected areas. Here we identify distributional hotspots for threatened endemic species, and evaluate the extent to which these are already included in the Natura 2000 network in Spain and Portugal. Despite a high degree of concordance between hotspots and Natura 2000 sites, the distribution of four species falls completely outside the network. The analysis also reveals that Natura 2000 fails to protect saline water bodies, despite their high conservation interest and narrow global distribution. The picture revealed here with water beetles is likely to be similar for others groups of freshwater macroinvertebrates, since Coleoptera are known to be good surrogates of aquatic biodiversity in the region. Finally, the degree of protection provided via Natura 2000, and the utility of red lists are discussed.
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    Using null models to identify under-represented species in protected areas: A case study using European amphibians and reptiles
    (Elsevier, 2015-02-21) Sánchez Fernández, David; Abellán, Pedro; Ecología e Hidrología
    One of the main issues in conservation biology is assessing how much biodiversity is currently represented in protected areas (PA). Traditional approaches such as ‘gap analysis’ require the choice of arbitrary targets and thresholds that can greatly influence the obtained results. We present here a complementary approach that avoids typical methodological uncertainties being particularly useful when the aim is to explore differences in the effectiveness of PA networks in representing species with distinct features and varying range sizes. Firstly, we calculated how far the distribution of a species overlaps with a network. Then, null models were used to test if this value is significantly different from random expectations (i.e. compared with random species of the same number of occurrences), which allowed over and underrepresented species to be identified. Using this approach, we aimed to determine how well amphibian and terrestrial reptile species in Europe were represented by two protected area networks: nationally designated protected areas (NPAs) and the Natura 2000 network (N2000). We also tested to see if there were any differences in species representation depending upon their conservation status, range size and distribution type. Although N2000 is more effective than NPAs, both PA networks performed poorly in representing European amphibians and reptiles, as the level of representativeness for most species (excepting reptiles in N2000) within these networks was either not significantly different or significantly lower than expected by chance. A combination of this approach with traditional gap analyses could provide valuable information to improve the future effectiveness of PAs.