Hilbers Jelle P, Santini Luca, Visconti Piero, Schipper Aafke M, Pinto Cecilia, Rondinini Carlo, Huijbregts Mark A J
Department of Environmental Science, Institute for Wetland and Water Research, Faculty of Science, Radboud University, P.O. Box 9010, NL-6500 GL, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Global Mammal Assessment Program, Department of Biology and Biotechnologies, Sapienza Università di Roma, Viale dell'Università 32, 00185, Rome, Italy.
Conserv Biol. 2017 Apr;31(2):385-393. doi: 10.1111/cobi.12846. Epub 2016 Dec 7.
Conservation planning and biodiversity assessments need quantitative targets to optimize planning options and assess the adequacy of current species protection. However, targets aiming at persistence require population-specific data, which limit their use in favor of fixed and nonspecific targets, likely leading to unequal distribution of conservation efforts among species. We devised a method to derive equitable population targets; that is, quantitative targets of population size that ensure equal probabilities of persistence across a set of species and that can be easily inferred from species-specific traits. In our method, we used models of population dynamics across a range of life-history traits related to species' body mass to estimate minimum viable population targets. We applied our method to a range of body masses of mammals, from 2 g to 3825 kg. The minimum viable population targets decreased asymptotically with increasing body mass and were on the same order of magnitude as minimum viable population estimates from species- and context-specific studies. Our approach provides a compromise between pragmatic, nonspecific population targets and detailed context-specific estimates of population viability for which only limited data are available. It enables a first estimation of species-specific population targets based on a readily available trait and thus allows setting equitable targets for population persistence in large-scale and multispecies conservation assessments and planning.
保护规划和生物多样性评估需要定量目标，以优化规划方案并评估当前物种保护的充分性。然而，旨在实现种群持续性的目标需要特定种群的数据，这限制了它们的使用，人们更倾向于固定的、非特定的目标，这可能导致保护工作在物种间分配不均。我们设计了一种方法来得出公平的种群目标；也就是说，种群数量的定量目标，确保一组物种具有相等的持续存在概率，并且可以从物种特定特征中轻松推断出来。在我们的方法中，我们使用了一系列与物种体重相关的生活史特征的种群动态模型，来估计最小可行种群目标。我们将我们的方法应用于一系列体重从2克到3825千克的哺乳动物。最小可行种群目标随着体重增加而渐近减少，并且与基于物种和具体情况的研究所估计的最小可行种群处于相同的数量级。我们的方法在务实的、非特定的种群目标与仅有限数据可用的详细的特定情况的种群生存力估计之间提供了一种折衷方案。它能够基于一个容易获得的特征对物种特定的种群目标进行初步估计，从而允许在大规模多物种保护评估和规划中为种群持续性设定公平的目标。
