Sutcliffe P R, Klein C J, Pitcher C R, Possingham H P
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, 4072, Australia.
CSIRO Oceans & Atmosphere Flagship, EcoSciences Precinct, 41 Boggo Road, Dutton Park, Queensland, 4102, Australia.
Conserv Biol. 2015 Jun;29(3):657-67. doi: 10.1111/cobi.12506. Epub 2015 Apr 28.
Biological sampling in marine systems is often limited, and the cost of acquiring new data is high. We sought to assess whether systematic reserves designed using abiotic domains adequately conserve a comprehensive range of species in a tropical marine inter-reef system. We based our assessment on data from the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. We designed reserve systems aiming to conserve 30% of each species based on 4 abiotic surrogate types (abiotic domains; weighted abiotic domains; pre-defined bioregions; and random selection of areas). We evaluated each surrogate in scenarios with and without cost (cost to fishery) and clumping (size of conservation area) constraints. To measure the efficacy of each reserve system for conservation purposes, we evaluated how well 842 species collected at 1155 sites across the Great Barrier Reef seabed were represented in each reserve system. When reserve design included both cost and clumping constraints, the mean proportion of species reaching the conservation target was 20-27% higher for reserve systems that were biologically informed than reserves designed using unweighted environmental data. All domains performed substantially better than random, except when there were no spatial or economic constraints placed on the system design. Under the scenario with no constraints, the mean proportion of species reaching the conservation target ranged from 98.5% to 99.99% across all surrogate domains, whereas the range was 90-96% across all domains when both cost and clumping were considered. This proportion did not change considerably between scenarios where one constraint was imposed and scenarios where both cost and clumping constraints were considered. We conclude that representative reserve systems can be designed using abiotic domains; however, there are substantial benefits if some biological information is incorporated.
海洋系统中的生物采样往往受到限制，获取新数据的成本很高。我们试图评估利用非生物领域设计的系统性保护区是否能充分保护热带海洋礁间系统中的各类物种。我们的评估基于澳大利亚大堡礁的数据。我们设计了保护区系统，旨在根据4种非生物替代类型（非生物领域；加权非生物领域；预定义的生物区域；以及随机选择区域）来保护每种物种的30%。我们在有无成本（渔业成本）和聚集（保护区面积大小）限制的情况下评估了每种替代方法。为了衡量每个保护区系统在保护方面的成效，我们评估了在大堡礁海床1155个站点采集的842个物种在每个保护区系统中的代表性如何。当保护区设计同时包含成本和聚集限制时，基于生物学信息设计的保护区系统中达到保护目标的物种平均比例比使用未加权环境数据设计的保护区高出20 - 27%。除了在系统设计没有空间或经济限制的情况下，所有领域的表现都明显优于随机选择。在没有限制的情况下，所有替代领域中达到保护目标的物种平均比例在98.5%至99.99%之间，而在同时考虑成本和聚集的情况下，所有领域的这一比例范围为90 - 96%。在施加一种限制的情况和同时考虑成本和聚集限制的情况之间，这一比例变化不大。我们得出结论，利用非生物领域可以设计出具有代表性的保护区系统；然而，如果纳入一些生物学信息会有很大益处。
