Maiorano Luigi, Falcucci Alessandra, Boitani Luigi
Department of Animal and Human Biology, Sapienza Università di Roma, Viale dell'Università 32, Rome, Italy.
Proc Biol Sci. 2008 Jun 7;275(1640):1297-304. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2007.1756.
One of the major threats facing protected areas (PAs) is land-use change and habitat loss. We assessed the impact of land-use change on PAs. The majority of parks have been effective at protecting the ecosystems within their borders, even in areas with significant land-use pressures. More in particular, the capacity of PAs to slow down habitat degradation and to favour habitat restoration is clearly related to their size, with smaller areas that on average follow the dominant land-use change pattern into which they are embedded. Our results suggest that small parks are not going to be viable in the long term if they are considered as islands surrounded by a 'human-dominated ocean'. However, small PAs are, in many cases, the only option available, implying that we need to devote much more attention to the non-protected matrix in which PAs must survive.
保护区（PAs）面临的主要威胁之一是土地利用变化和栖息地丧失。我们评估了土地利用变化对保护区的影响。即使在土地利用压力巨大的地区，大多数公园在保护其边界内的生态系统方面都很有效。更具体地说，保护区减缓栖息地退化和促进栖息地恢复的能力显然与其面积有关，面积较小的区域平均而言会遵循其所嵌入的主导土地利用变化模式。我们的结果表明，如果将小型公园视为被“人类主导的海洋”包围的岛屿，那么从长远来看它们将无法生存。然而，在许多情况下，小型保护区是唯一可用的选择，这意味着我们需要更加关注保护区赖以生存的非保护基质。
