Predicting biodiversity richness in rapidly changing landscapes: climate, low human pressure or protection as salvation?
- PDF / 3,246,243 Bytes
- 23 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 38 Downloads / 165 Views
(0123456789().,-volV)(0123456789().,-volV)
ORIGINAL PAPER
Predicting biodiversity richness in rapidly changing landscapes: climate, low human pressure or protection as salvation? David W. Macdonald, et al. [full author details at the end of the article] Received: 22 March 2020 / Revised: 30 September 2020 / Accepted: 3 October 2020 Ó The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Rates of biodiversity loss in Southeast Asia are among the highest in the world, and the Indo-Burma and South-Central China Biodiversity Hotspots rank among the world’s most threatened. Developing robust multi-species conservation models is critical for stemming biodiversity loss both here and globally. We used a large and geographically extensive remote-camera survey and multi-scale, multivariate optimization species distribution modelling to investigate the factors driving biodiversity across these two adjoining biodiversity hotspots. Four major findings emerged from the work. (i) We identified clear spatial patterns of species richness, with two main biodiverse centres in the Thai-Malay Peninsula and in the mountainous region of Southwest China. (ii) Carnivores in particular, and large ungulates to a lesser degree, were the strongest indicators of species richness. (iii) Climate had the largest effect on biodiversity, followed by protected status and human footprint. (iv) Gap analysis between the biodiversity model and the current system of protected areas revealed that the majority of areas supporting the highest predicted biodiversity are not protected. Our results highlighted several key locations that should be prioritized for expanding the protected area network to maximize conservation effectiveness. We demonstrated the importance of switching from single-species to multi-species approaches to highlight areas of high priority for biodiversity conservation. In addition, since these areas mostly occur over multiple countries, we also advocate for a paradigmatic focus on transboundary conservation planning. Keywords Biodiversity hotspots Community assembly Multi-scale Multi-species Southeast Asia Species richness
Communicated by Dirk Sven Schmeller. David W. Macdonald and Luca Chiaverini are joint first authors. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-02002062-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
123
Biodiversity and Conservation
Introduction Originally, 25 biodiversity hotspots were identified globally, collectively supporting 44% and 35% of the world’s vascular plants and terrestrial vertebrates, respectively, in an area equal to 1.4% of the Earth’s land surface (Myers et al. 2000). Among these hotspots, two important ones are the Indo-Burma and South-Central China Biodiversity Hotspots (Fig. 1). Together, they form a continuous area of almost 3,000,000 km2, encompassing much of Southeast Asia. This region is home to 10,500 endemic plants and 706 endemic vertebrates, representing 3.5% and 2.6% of global vascular plants and vertebrates
Data Loading...
