@article{10272/4384,
year = {2011},
url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10272/4384},
abstract = {1. Freshwater conservation has received less attention than its terrestrial or marine
counterparts, despite freshwater systems containing a considerable amount of the earth´s
biodiversity. Given the accelerated rate of change and intensive human use that
freshwater ecosystems are submitted to, it is urgent to devote some attention to them.
The application of existing conservation planning tools - such as Marxan - to riverine
planning needs some adaptations to account for the special nature of these systems.
Connectivity plays a key role in freshwater ecosystems – threats are mediated along
river corridors and the health of the entire catchmemt influences. This needs to be
considered in conservation planning approaches.
2. The probability of occurrence, obtained from MARS-GLM models, of nine native
freshwater fish species in a Mediterranean river basin was used as features to develop
spatial conservation priorities. The priorities accounted for complementarity and spatial
design issues.
3. To deal with the connected nature of rivers, we modified Marxan´s boundary length
penalty, hence avoiding the selection of isolated planning units and forcing the inclusion
of closer upstream areas. We introduced ‘virtual boundaries’ between non-headwater
stream segments, and added distance-weighted penalties to the overall connectivity cost
(CP) when stream segments upstream of the selected planning units are not selected.
4. This approach to prioritising connectivity rule is concordant with ecological theory,
as it considers the natural and roughly exponential decay of upstream influences with
distance. It allows accounting for the natural capacity of rivers to mitigate impacts when
designing reserves. With a small emphasis on connectivity, Marxan prioritised natural
corridors for longitudinal movements. In contrast, whole sub-basins were prioritised
when connectivity was emphasized. Changing the relative emphasis on connectivity
causes substantial changes in the spatial prioritisation; our conservation investment
could move from one basin to another.
5. Our novel approach to dealing with directional connectivity enables managers in
charge of freshwater systems to set ecologically meaningful spatial conservation
priorities.},
organization = {The fieldwork was supported by the Confederacio
´
n
Hidrogra
´
fica del Guadiana through the project ‘Disen
˜
o
y Explotacio
´
n de la Red de Control Biolo
´
gico de la Cuenca
del Rı
´
o Guadiana’ and the Ministry of Science and
Technology (REN2002-03513, CGL2005-02699). We
thank Noam Levin for the help with GIS information,
Jane Elith for the statistical help with MARS-GLM
models and Eren Turak for his comments and
suggestions on this manuscript. V. Hermoso held a
predoctoral fellowship financed by the Spanish Min-
istry of Education (AP-2004-1414). Simon Linke’s
postdoctoral fellowship is funded by the eWater CRC.},
publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell},
title = {Addressing longitudinal connectivity in freshwater systematic conservation planning},
doi = {10.1111/j.1365-2427.2009.02390.x},
author = {Hermoso López, Virgilio and Linke, Simon and Prenda Marín, José and Possingham, Hugh},
}