Selecting relevant areas for biodiversity conservation

Abstract

Selecting relevant areas for biodiversity conservation. The alarming biodiversity loss that witness since some decades ago requires the development of efficient conservation strategies. As conservation is generally expensive and the available resources are limited, the establishment of priorities becomes essential in order to optimize the balance between benefits and costs. Identifying outstanding areas of biodiversity at different scales of the territory can be one of the criteria, but not the unique one, used to prioritize areas for conservation. The ultimate aims may be completing reserve networks, identifying potential impacts caused by civil engineering and propose actions to mitigate them,  or  prioritizing  ecological  restoration  projects.  In  this  article  we  explain  the  results  of  four  case  studies.  Three  of  them  refer  to vertebrate  species  in  the  Iberian  Peninsula  and  the  Balearic  Islands  and  in  Castille-La  Mancha,  and  they  apply  a  Combined  Index  of Biodiversity  that  synthesizes  the  characteristics  of  species  richness,  rarity  and  vulnerability. The  fourth  case  study  has  to  do  with  tree diversity in a tropical montane landscape in The Highlands of Chiapas (Mexico), and uses a combination of forecasting models of α-diversity and the complementarity of forest communities (β-diversity) to establish priority areas for conservation.