Game Edward T, McDonald-Madden Eve, Puotinen Marji L, Possingham Hugh P
The Ecology Centre and Centre for Applied Environmental Decision Analysis, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia.
Conserv Biol. 2008 Dec;22(6):1619-29. doi: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2008.01037.x. Epub 2008 Aug 29.
It is thought that recovery of marine habitats from uncontrollable disturbance may be faster in marine reserves than in unprotected habitats. But which marine habitats should be protected, those areas at greatest risk or those at least risk? We first defined this problem mathematically for 2 alternate conservation objectives. We then analytically solved this problem for both objectives and determined under which conditions each of the different protection strategies was optimal. If the conservation objective was to maximize the chance of having at least 1 healthy site, then the best strategy was protection of the site at lowest risk. On the other hand, if the goal was to maximize the expected number of healthy sites, the optimal strategy was more complex. If protected sites were likely to spend a significant amount of time in a degraded state, then it was best to protect low-risk sites. Alternatively, if most areas were generally healthy then, counterintuitively, it was best to protect sites at higher risk. We applied these strategies to a situation of cyclone disturbance of coral reefs on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. With regard to the risk of cyclone disturbance, the optimal reef to protect differed dramatically, depending on the expected speed of reef recovery of both protected and unprotected reefs. An adequate consideration of risk is fundamental to all conservation actions and can indicate surprising routes to conservation success.
人们认为，在海洋保护区内，海洋栖息地从无法控制的干扰中恢复的速度可能比在未受保护的栖息地更快。但是，应该保护哪些海洋栖息地呢？是那些风险最大的区域还是风险最小的区域？我们首先针对两个不同的保护目标，用数学方法定义了这个问题。然后，我们针对这两个目标进行了分析求解，并确定了在哪些条件下每种不同的保护策略是最优的。如果保护目标是使至少有一个健康区域的可能性最大化，那么最佳策略是保护风险最低的区域。另一方面，如果目标是使健康区域的预期数量最大化，最优策略则更为复杂。如果受保护区域可能会在退化状态下持续很长时间，那么最好保护低风险区域。或者，如果大多数区域总体上是健康的，那么与直觉相反，最好保护风险较高的区域。我们将这些策略应用于澳大利亚大堡礁遭受气旋干扰的情况。关于气旋干扰的风险，根据受保护和未受保护珊瑚礁的预期恢复速度，最佳保护的珊瑚礁差异巨大。充分考虑风险是所有保护行动的基础，并且可能指向令人惊讶的保护成功途径。
