Regan Helen M, Hierl Lauren A, Franklin Janet, Deutschman Douglas H, Schmalbach Heather L, Winchell Clark S, Johnson Brenda S
Department of Biology, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182-4614, USA.
Biology Department, University of California , 900 University Avenue, Riverside, CA 92521, USA.
Divers Distrib. 2008 May;14(3):462-471. doi: 10.1111/j.1472-4642.2007.00447.x. Epub 2007 Dec 21.
Successful conservation plans are not solely achieved by acquiring optimally designed reserves. Ongoing monitoring and management of the biodiversity in those reserves is an equally important, but often neglected or poorly executed, part of the conservation process. In this paper we address one of the first and most important steps in designing a monitoring program - deciding what to monitor. We present a strategy for prioritizing species for monitoring and management in multispecies conservation plans. We use existing assessments of threatened status, and the degree and spatial and temporal extent of known threats to link the prioritization of species to the overarching goals and objectives of the conservation plan. We consider both broad and localized spatial scales to capture the regional conservation context and the practicalities of local management and monitoring constraints. Spatial scales that are commensurate with available data are selected. We demonstrate the utility of this strategy through application to a set of 85 plants and animals in an established multispecies conservation plan in San Diego County, California, USA. We use the prioritization to identify the most prominent risk factors and the habitats associated with the most threats to species. The protocol highlighted priorities that had not previously been identified and were not necessarily intuitive without systematic application of the criteria; many high-priority species have received no monitoring attention to date, and lower-priority species have. We recommend that in the absence of clear focal species, monitoring threats in highly impacted habitats may be a way to circumvent the need to monitor all the targeted species.
成功的保护计划并非仅仅通过获取设计优化的保护区就能实现。对这些保护区内生物多样性的持续监测和管理是保护过程中同样重要但往往被忽视或执行不力的一部分。在本文中，我们探讨了设计监测计划的首要且最重要的步骤之一——决定监测内容。我们提出了一种在多物种保护计划中对监测和管理的物种进行优先排序的策略。我们利用现有的受威胁状况评估以及已知威胁的程度、空间和时间范围，将物种的优先排序与保护计划的总体目标相联系。我们考虑了广泛和局部的空间尺度，以把握区域保护背景以及当地管理和监测限制的实际情况。选择与可用数据相匹配的空间尺度。我们通过将该策略应用于美国加利福尼亚州圣地亚哥县一个既定的多物种保护计划中的85种动植物，展示了其效用。我们利用优先排序来识别最突出的风险因素以及与对物种威胁最大相关的栖息地。该方案突出了那些以前未被识别且在没有系统应用标准时不一定直观的优先事项；许多高优先级物种至今未受到监测关注，而低优先级物种却受到了关注。我们建议，在没有明确重点物种的情况下，监测受高度影响栖息地中的威胁可能是一种规避监测所有目标物种需求的方法。
