Faculty of Forestry, Geography and Geomatics, Laval University, Quebec, Quebec, Canada.
CEFE, CNRS, EPHE, University of Montpellier, IRD, Montpellier, France.
PLoS One. 2020 Sep 30;15(9):e0238821. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0238821. eCollection 2020.
Land-use change and climate change are recognized as two main drivers of the current biodiversity decline. Protected areas help safeguard the landscape from additional anthropogenic disturbances and, when properly designed, can help species cope with climate change impacts. When designed to protect the regional biodiversity rather than to conserve focal species or landscape elements, protected areas need to cover a representative sample of the regional biodiversity and be functionally connected, facilitating individual movements among protected areas in a network to maximize their effectiveness. We developed a methodology to define effective protected areas to implement in a regional network using ecological representativeness and functional connectivity as criteria. We illustrated this methodology in the Gaspésie region of Québec, Canada. We simulated movements for the endangered Atlantic-Gaspésie caribou population (Rangifer tarandus caribou), using an individual-based model, to determine functional connectivity based on this large mammal. We created multiple protected areas network scenarios and evaluated their ecological representativeness and functional connectivity for the current and future conditions. We selected a subset of the most effective network scenarios and extracted the protected areas included in them. There was a tradeoff between ecological representativeness and functional connectivity for the created networks. Only a few protected areas among those available were repeatedly chosen in the most effective networks. Protected areas maximizing both ecological representativeness and functional connectivity represented suitable areas to implement in an effective protected areas network. These areas ensured that a representative sample of the regional biodiversity was covered by the network, as well as maximizing the movement over time between and inside the protected areas for the focal population.
土地利用变化和气候变化被认为是当前生物多样性下降的两个主要驱动因素。保护区有助于保护景观免受额外的人为干扰，并且在设计得当的情况下，有助于物种应对气候变化的影响。当保护区的设计目的是保护区域生物多样性，而不是保护焦点物种或景观要素时，它们需要覆盖区域生物多样性的代表性样本，并具有功能连接性，以促进网络中保护区之间的个体运动，从而最大限度地提高其效果。我们开发了一种使用生态代表性和功能连通性作为标准来定义有效保护区并在区域网络中实施的方法。我们在加拿大魁北克加斯佩地区说明了这种方法。我们使用基于个体的模型模拟了濒危的大西洋-加斯佩驯鹿（Rangifer tarandus caribou）种群的运动，以确定基于这种大型哺乳动物的功能连通性。我们创建了多个保护区网络情景，并评估了它们在当前和未来条件下的生态代表性和功能连通性。我们选择了一组最有效的网络情景，并从中提取了包含的保护区。创建的网络在生态代表性和功能连通性之间存在权衡。只有少数几个保护区在最有效的网络中被反复选择。最大限度地提高生态代表性和功能连通性的保护区代表了在有效的保护区网络中实施的合适区域。这些区域确保网络覆盖了区域生物多样性的代表性样本，并最大限度地提高了焦点种群在保护区之间和内部随时间的运动。
