Choe Hyeyeong, Thorne James H, Huber Patrick R, Lee Dongkun, Quinn James F
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, California, United States of America.
Department of Landscape Architecture & Rural System Engineering, College of Agriculture Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea.
PLoS One. 2018 Feb 23;13(2):e0190754. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0190754. eCollection 2018.
Protected areas (PAs) are often considered the most important biodiversity conservation areas in national plans, but PAs often do not represent national-scale biodiversity. We evaluate the current conservation status of plant biodiversity within current existing PAs, and identify potential additional PAs for South Korea. We modeled species ranges for 2,297 plant species using Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines and compared the level of mean range representation in South Korea's existing PAs, which comprise 5.7% of the country's mainland area, with an equal-area alternative PA strategy selected with the reserve algorithm Marxan. We also used Marxan to model two additional conservation scenarios that add lands to approach the Aichi Biodiversity Target objectives (17% of the country). Existing PAs in South Korea contain an average of 6.3% of each plant species' range, compared to 5.9% in the modeled equal-area alternative. However, existing PAs primarily represent a high percentage of the ranges for high-elevation and small range size species. The additional PAs scenario that adds lands to the existing PAs covers 14,587.55 km2, and would improve overall plant range representation to a mean of 16.8% of every species' range. The other additional PAs scenario, which selects new PAs from all lands and covers 13,197.35 km2, would improve overall plant range representation to a mean of 13.5%. Even though the additional PAs that includes existing PAs represents higher percentages of species' ranges, it is missing many biodiversity hotspots in non-mountainous areas and the additional PAs without locking in the existing PAs represent almost all species' ranges evenly, including low-elevation ones with larger ranges. Some priority conservation areas we identified are expansions of, or near, existing PAs, especially in northeastern and southern South Korea. However, lowland coastal areas and areas surrounding the capital city, Seoul, are also critical for biodiversity conservation in South Korea.
保护区通常被视为国家规划中最重要的生物多样性保护区，但保护区往往不能代表国家尺度的生物多样性。我们评估了韩国现有保护区内植物生物多样性的当前保护状况，并确定了潜在的新增保护区。我们使用多元自适应回归样条法对2297种植物的物种分布范围进行了建模，并将韩国现有保护区（占该国大陆面积的5.7%）的平均分布范围代表性水平与使用Marxan保护区算法选择的等面积替代保护区策略进行了比较。我们还使用Marxan对另外两种保护情景进行了建模，这两种情景通过增加土地面积来接近爱知生物多样性目标（该国面积的17%）。韩国现有的保护区平均包含每种植物物种分布范围的6.3%，而在建模的等面积替代方案中这一比例为5.9%。然而，现有保护区主要代表了高海拔和小分布范围物种分布范围的高比例。在现有保护区基础上增加土地面积的新增保护区情景覆盖面积为14587.55平方公里，将使整体植物分布范围代表性提高到每个物种分布范围的平均16.8%。另一种新增保护区情景是从所有土地中选择新的保护区，覆盖面积为13197.35平方公里，将使整体植物分布范围代表性提高到平均13.5%。尽管包括现有保护区的新增保护区代表了更高比例的物种分布范围，但它遗漏了非山区的许多生物多样性热点地区，而不锁定现有保护区的新增保护区几乎均匀地代表了所有物种的分布范围，包括分布范围较大的低海拔物种。我们确定的一些优先保护区域是现有保护区的扩展区域或其附近区域，特别是在韩国东北部和南部。然而，低地沿海地区以及首都首尔周边地区对于韩国的生物多样性保护也至关重要。
