Miu Iulia V, Rozylowicz Laurentiu, Popescu Viorel D, Anastasiu Paulina
Center for Environmental Research, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania.
Chelonia Romania, Bucharest, Romania.
PeerJ. 2020 Sep 30;8:e10067. doi: 10.7717/peerj.10067. eCollection 2020.
The European Union strives to increase protected areas of the EU terrestrial surface to 30% by year 2030, of which one third should be strictly protected. Designation of the Natura 2000 network, the backbone of nature protection in the EU, was mostly an expert-opinion process with little systematic conservation planning. The designation of the Natura 2000 network in Romania followed the same non-systematic approach, resulting in a suboptimal representation of invertebrates and plants. To help identify areas with very high biodiversity without repeating past planning missteps, we present a reproducible example of spatial prioritization using Romania's current terrestrial Natura 2000 network and coarse-scale terrestrial species occurrence.
We used 371 terrestrial Natura 2000 Sites of Community Importance (Natura 2000 SCI), designated to protect 164 terrestrial species listed under Annex II of Habitats Directive in Romania in our spatial prioritization analyses (marine Natura 2000 sites and species were excluded). Species occurrences in terrestrial Natura 2000 sites were aggregated at a Universal Traverse Mercator spatial resolution of 1 km. To identify priority terrestrial Natura 2000 sites for species conservation, and to explore if the Romanian Natura 2000 network sufficiently represents species included in Annex II of Habitats Directive, we used Zonation v4, a decision support software tool for spatial conservation planning. We carried out the analyses nationwide (all Natura 2000 sites) as well as separately for each biogeographic region (i.e., Alpine, Continental, Pannonian, Steppic and Black Sea).
The results of spatial prioritization of terrestrial Natura 2000 vary greatly by planning scenario. The performance of national-level planning of top priorities is minimal. On average, when 33% of the landscape of Natura 2000 sites is protected, only 20% of the distribution of species listed in Annex II of Habitats Directive are protected. As a consequence, the representation of species by priority terrestrial Natura 2000 sites is lessened when compared to the initial set of species. When planning by taxonomic group, the top-priority areas include only 10% of invertebrate distribution in Natura 2000. When selecting top-priority areas by biogeographical region, there are significantly fewer gap species than in the national level and by taxa scenarios; thusly, the scenario outperforms the national-level prioritization. The designation of strictly protected areas as required by the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 should be followed by setting clear objectives, including a good representation of species and habitats at the biogeographical region level.
欧盟致力于到2030年将欧盟陆地表面的保护区面积增加到30%，其中三分之一应得到严格保护。“自然2000”网络是欧盟自然保护的支柱，其指定大多是一个专家意见过程，几乎没有系统的保护规划。罗马尼亚“自然2000”网络的指定也采用了同样的非系统方法，导致无脊椎动物和植物的代表性欠佳。为了帮助确定生物多样性极高的地区，同时避免重蹈过去规划失误的覆辙，我们展示了一个利用罗马尼亚当前的陆地“自然2000”网络和粗略尺度的陆地物种分布情况进行空间优先排序的可重复示例。
我们在空间优先排序分析中使用了371个具有社区重要性的陆地“自然2000”站点（“自然2000”SCI），这些站点被指定用于保护罗马尼亚《栖息地指令》附件II中列出的164种陆地物种（海洋“自然2000”站点和物种被排除）。陆地“自然2000”站点中的物种分布在通用横轴墨卡托投影1公里的空间分辨率下进行汇总。为了确定用于物种保护的优先陆地“自然2000”站点，并探讨罗马尼亚“自然2000”网络是否充分代表了《栖息地指令》附件II中包含的物种，我们使用了Zonation v4，这是一种用于空间保护规划的决策支持软件工具。我们在全国范围内（所有“自然2000”站点）以及分别针对每个生物地理区域（即阿尔卑斯、大陆、潘诺尼亚、草原和黑海）进行了分析。
陆地“自然2000”的空间优先排序结果因规划方案而异。国家层面的最高优先级规划效果甚微。平均而言，当“自然2000”站点景观的33%得到保护时，《栖息地指令》附件II中列出的物种分布只有20%得到保护。因此，与最初的物种集相比，优先陆地“自然2000”站点对物种的代表性有所降低。按分类群进行规划时，最高优先级区域仅涵盖“自然2000”中10%的无脊椎动物分布。按生物地理区域选择最高优先级区域时，缺口物种明显少于国家层面和按分类群的方案；因此，该方案优于国家层面的优先排序。按照欧盟2030年生物多样性战略的要求指定严格保护区之后，应明确目标，包括在生物地理区域层面良好地代表物种和栖息地。
