Author(s): Alagador, Diogo André Alves Salgado Rodrigues
Date: 2011
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.5/3877
Origin: Repositório da UTL
Subject(s): biodiversity; climate change; conservation planning; protected areas; species distribution models
Doutoramento em Biologia - Instituto Superior de Agronomia
Spatial Conservation Planning is a scientific-driven procedure to identify cost effective networks of areas capable of representing biodiversity through time. This conceptually simple task accommodates sufficient complexity to justify the existence of an active research line with more than 20 years already. But costefficiency and representation of biodiversity is only part of the whole challenge of Spatial Conservation Planning.The recognition that Nature operates dynamically has stimulated researchers to embrace the additional challenges of developing methods to make conventional (static) conservation approaches more dynamic and therefore increase the chances that biodiversity are preserved in the longer term. In this thesis, I present a set of tools to assist spatial conservation decision-making and address issues such as uncertainty and spatial dynamics of species ranges. These two topics are particularly relevant in the context of ongoing climate changes. I start by investigating two connectivity paradigms for the identification of conservation areas. In the first, a distance-based approach is applied for the identification of areas representing a set of species. In the second, I present a conceptual framework based on the analysis of environmental similarity between protected areas. The framework seeks to identify effective spatial linkages between protected areas while ensuring that these linkages are as efficient as possible. Then, I introduce a methodology to refine the matching of species distributions and protected area data in gap analysis. Forth, I present a comprehensive assessment for the expected impacts of climate change among European conservation areas. Finally, I address a framework for cost-efficient identification of the best areas that, in each time period, assist species’ range adjustments induced by severe climate changes. There exists a wealth of theoretical insight and algorithmic power available to ecologists. This thesis took advantage of it and (I hope) it offers useful guidance for genuine biodiversity protection.
