Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas, y Naturales, Centro de Zoología Aplicada, Rondeau 798, Córdoba, 5000, Argentina.
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Instituto de Diversidad y Ecología Animal (IDEA), Av Vélez Sarsfield 299, Córdoba, 5000, Argentina.
Conserv Biol. 2020 Oct;34(5):1281-1291. doi: 10.1111/cobi.13476. Epub 2020 May 6.
Effective conservation policies require comprehensive knowledge of biodiversity. However, knowledge shortfalls still remain, hindering possibilities to improve decision making and built such policies. During the last 2 decades, conservationists have made great efforts to allocate resources as efficiently as possible but have rarely considered the idea that if research investments are also strategically allocated, it would likely fill knowledge gaps while simultaneously improving conservation actions. Therefore, prioritizing areas where both conservation and research actions could be conducted becomes a critical endeavor that can further maximize return on investment. We used Zonation, a conservation planning tool and geographical distributions of amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles to suggest and compare priority areas for conservation and research of terrestrial vertebrates worldwide. We also evaluated the degree of human disturbance in both types of priority areas by describing the value of the human footprint index within such areas. The spatial concordance between priority conservation and research areas was low: 0.36% of the world's land area. In these areas, we found it would be possible to protect almost half of the currently threatened species and to gather information on nearly 42% of data-deficient (DD) species. We also found that 6199 protected areas worldwide are located in such places, although only 35% of them have strict conservation purposes. Areas of consensus between conservation and research areas represent an opportunity for simultaneously conserving and acquiring knowledge of threatened and DD species of vertebrates. Although the picture is not the most encouraging, joint conservation and research efforts are possible and should be fostered to save vertebrate species from our own ignorance and extinction.
有效的保护政策需要全面了解生物多样性。然而，知识的不足仍然存在，这阻碍了我们改进决策和制定相关政策的可能性。在过去的 20 年中，保护主义者已经做出了巨大的努力，以尽可能有效地分配资源，但他们很少考虑到这样一个想法，即如果研究投资也能得到战略性的分配，那么这很可能会填补知识空白，同时改善保护行动。因此，优先考虑可以同时进行保护和研究行动的地区，成为一项至关重要的努力，这可以进一步最大限度地提高投资回报。我们使用了保护规划工具 Zonation 以及两栖动物、鸟类、哺乳动物和爬行动物的地理分布，来建议和比较全球陆地脊椎动物保护和研究的优先领域。我们还通过描述这些区域内人类足迹指数的价值，评估了这两种优先区域的人类干扰程度。保护和研究优先区域的空间一致性很低：占世界土地面积的 0.36%。在这些区域中，我们发现几乎可以保护近一半目前受到威胁的物种，并收集近 42%的数据不足（DD）物种的信息。我们还发现，全球有 6199 个保护区位于这些地方，尽管其中只有 35%具有严格的保护目的。保护和研究区域之间的共识区域代表了一个同时保护和获取受威胁和 DD 物种知识的机会。尽管情况并不乐观，但联合保护和研究工作是可能的，应该加以促进，以避免我们因自身的无知和物种灭绝而使脊椎动物物种面临灭绝的危险。
