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1. Applications of graph-theoretic connectivity are increasing at an exponential rate in ecology and conservation. Here, limitations of these measures are summarized. 2. Graph-theoretic connectivity measures are fundamentally limited as they require specification of a habitat quality threshold to allow definition of habitat patches (nodes). Frequently, a second threshold (critical dispersal distance) is applied in the identification of graph edges. 3. Graph-theoretic measures are poorly applicable to large-scale, high-resolution, grid-based data that describe distributions of species in habitats of varying quality. 4. Graph-theoretic connectivity primarily concerns the emigration-immigration component of spatial population-dynamics. Therefore, it cannot alone answer questions about the regional population size, resilience or persistence of a focal species. 5. Synthesis and applications: Conservation managers in particular should appreciate these limitations before applying graph-theoretic analysis to spatial conservation planning.

ContextSpatial conservation prioritization (SCP) has most often been applied to the design of reserve network expansion. In addition to occurrences of species and habitats inside protected area candidate sites, one may also be interested about network-level connectivity considerations.ObjectivesWe applied SCP to the identification of ecological networks to inform the development of a new regional plan for the region of Uusimaa (South-Finland, including the Finnish capital district).MethodsInput data were 59 high-quality layers of biotope and species distribution data. We identified ecological networks based on a combination of a Zonation balanced priority ranking map and a weighted range size rarity map, to account for both relative and absolute conservation values in the process. We also identified ecological corridors between protected areas and other ecologically high-priority areas using the corridor retention method of Zonation. Furthermore, we identified candidate sites for habitat restoration.ResultsWe found seven large ecological networks (132–1201 km2) which stand out from their surrounding landscape in terms of ecological value and have clear connectivity bottlenecks between them. Highest restoration needs were found between large high-priority sites that are connected via remnant habitat fragments in comparatively highly modified areas.ConclusionsLand conversion should be avoided in areas of highest ecological priorities and network-level connectivity. Restoration should be considered for connectivity bottlenecks. Methods described here can be applied in any location where relevant spatial data are available. The present results are actively used by the regional council and municipalities in the region of Uusimaa.

Island biogeography theory posits that species richness increases with island size and decreases with isolation. This logic underpins much conservation policy and regulation, with preference given to conserving large, highly connected areas, and relative ambivalence shown toward protecting small, isolated habitat patches. We undertook a global synthesis of the relationship between the conservation value of habitat patches and their size and isolation, based on 31 systematic conservation planning studies across four continents. We found that small, isolated patches are inordinately important for biodiversity conservation. Our results provide a powerful argument for redressing the neglect of small, isolated habitat patches, for urgently prioritizing their restoration, and for avoiding simplistic application of island biogeography theory in conservation decisions.

Connectivity is a vital component of metapopulation and landscape ecology, influencing fundamental processes such as population dynamics, evolution, and community responses to climate change. Here, we review ongoing developments in connectivity science, providing perspectives on recent advances in identifying, quantifying, modelling and analysing connectivity, and highlight new applications for conservation. We also address ongoing challenges for connectivity research, explore opportunities for addressing them and highlight potential linkages with other fields of research. Continued development of connectivity science will provide insights into key aspects of ecology and the evolution of species, and will also contribute significantly towards achieving more effective conservation outcomes.

The prosperity and well-being of human societies relies on healthy ecosystems and the services they provide. However, the biodiversity crisis is undermining ecosystems services and functions. Vultures are among the most imperiled taxonomic groups on Earth, yet they have a fundamental ecosystem function. These obligate scavengers rapidly consume large amounts of carrion and human waste, a service that may aid in both disease prevention and control of mammalian scavengers, including feral dogs, which in turn threaten humans. We combined information about the distribution of all 15 vulture species found in Europe, Asia, and Africa with their threats and used detailed expert knowledge on threat intensity to prioritize critical areas for conserving vultures in Africa and Eurasia. Threats we identified included poisoning, mortality due to collision with wind energy infrastructures, and other anthropogenic activities related to human land use and influence. Areas important for vulture conservation were concentrated in southern and eastern Africa, South Asia, and the Iberian Peninsula, and over 80% of these areas were unprotected. Some vulture species required larger areas for protection than others. Finally, countries that had the largest share of all identified important priority areas for vulture conservation were those with the largest expenditures related to rabies burden (e.g., India, China, and Myanmar). Vulture populations have declined markedly in most of these countries. Restoring healthy vulture populations through targeted actions in the priority areas we identified may help restore the ecosystem services vultures provide, including sanitation and potentially prevention of diseases, such as rabies, a heavy burden afflicting fragile societies. Our findings may guide stakeholders to prioritize actions where they are needed most in order to achieve international goals for biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. La prosperidad y el bienestar de la sociedad humana dependen de ecosistemas sanos y de los servicios ambientales que éstosproporcionan. Sin embargo, la crisisde biodiversidadestá afectandoa los servicios ambientales y sus funciones. Los buitres se encuentran entre los grupos taxonómicos con mayor amenaza sobre el planeta, a pesar de tener una función fundamental en los ecosistemas. Estos carroñeros obligados consumen rápidamente grandes cantidades de carroña y desechos humanos, un servicio que puede ayudar en la prevención de enfermedades y en el control de mamíferos carroñeros, incluyendo a los perros ferales, los cuales pueden ser un peligro para los humanos. Combinamos la información sobre la distribución de las 15 especies de buitres en Europa, Asia y África con las amenazas que presentan y usamos el conocimiento detallado de expertos sobre la intensidad de las amenazas para priorizar las áreas críticas para la conservación de buitres en África y en Eurasia. Las amenazas que identificamos incluyeron el envenenamiento, la mortalidad por colisiones con infraestructura eólica y otras actividades antropogénicas relacionadas con el uso de suelo y la influencia humana. Las áreas importantes para la conservación de buitres estuvieron concentradas en el sur y el este de África, el sur de Asia y la Península Ibérica, y más del 80% de estas áreas no contaban con protección. Algunas especies de buitres requirieron áreas más grandes para su protección que otras especies. Finalmente, los países que tuvieron la mayor porción de todas las áreas prioritarias importantes e identificadas para la conservación de buitres también fueron aquellos con los mayores gastos relacionados con la carga de la rabia (por ejemplo, India, China y Myanmar). Las poblaciones de buitres han declinado marcadamente en la mayoría de estos países. La restauración de poblaciones sanas de buitres por medio de acciones enfocadas en las áreas prioritarias que identificamos puede ayudar a restaurar los servicios ambientales que proporcionan los buitres, incluyendo el saneamiento y la prevención potencial de enfermedades, como la rabia, una carga pesada que aflige a las sociedades frágiles. Nuestros resultados pueden guiar a los interesados hacia la priorización de acciones en donde más se necesitan para poder alcanzar los objetivos internacionales para la conservación de la biodiversidad y el desarrollo sustentable. 人类社会的繁荣昌盛依赖于健康的生态系统及其所提供的服务。然而，生物多祥性危机芷在破坏生态系 统的服务和功能。秃鹰是地球上最濒危的类群之一，而它们却能提供基础的生态系统功能。它们作为专性食腐 动物可以快速消耗大量腐肉及人类废弃物，提供的生态系统服务有助于预防疾病，以及控制哺乳类食腐动物，如 会对人类造成威胁的野狗。我们将欧洲、亚洲和非洲的全部+ 五种秃鹰的分布信息与其面临的威胁相结合，利 用详细的关于威胁强度的专业知识, 确定了非洲及欧亚关键的秃鹰保护优先地区。秃鹰面临的威胁包括中毒、 撞击风能设施导致的死亡，以及与人类土地利用和影响有关的其它人类活动。秃鹰的重点保护区域集中在非洲 南部和东部、南非和利比亚半岛，这些地区超过80%的土地没有得到保护。另外，秃鹰中某些物种相比之下需 要更大区域进行保护。我们还发现,秃鹰的重要优先保护区域占比最大的国家同时也是那呰在狂犬病上的支出 最高的国家(如印度、中国、缅甸)，而其中大多数国家的秃鹰种群数量已经明显下降。通过在我们确定的优先 保护区域采取有针对性的行动来恢复健康的秃鹰种群，可能有助于恢复秃鹰提供的生态系统服务，包括环境卫 生和预防潜在疾病，比如狂犬病这种沉重的社会负担。我们的研究成果可以指导利益相关者在需求最迫切的地 方优先采取行动，以实现生物多祥性保护和可持续发展的国际目标。

Internationally coordinated expansion of the global protected area network to 17% could triple the average protection of species ranges and ecoregions; if projected land-use changes and consequent habitat loss until 2040 occur, currently feasible protection levels will not be achievable, and more than 1,000 threatened species face reductions in the range of over 50%. Conservation without frontiers Protected areas are intended to mitigate pressures on biodiversity caused by anthropogenic factors such as habitat loss. To that end, an internationally agreed target aims to extend the protected area network to cover 17% of the world's land area by 2020. But biodiversity is unevenly distributed between countries and habitats, raising the question of which areas should be protected to maximize the effectiveness. Federico Montesino Pouzols et al . show that internationally coordinated expansion of the protected area network to the 17% target could triple the average protection of species ranges and ecoregions. However, within-country prioritization is considerably less efficient. Moreover, taking into account projected land-use changes and consequent habitat loss until 2040, current levels of protection will not be feasible to maintain, and over 1,000 threatened species face reductions in their range of over 50%. Thus, the authors suggest that for effective biodiversity conservation, land-use policy and protected area decisions must be coordinated at an international level. Protected areas are one of the main tools for halting the continuing global biodiversity crisis 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 caused by habitat loss, fragmentation and other anthropogenic pressures 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 . According to the Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 adopted by the Convention on Biological Diversity, the protected area network should be expanded to at least 17% of the terrestrial world by 2020 ( http://www.cbd.int/sp/targets ). To maximize conservation outcomes, it is crucial to identify the best expansion areas. Here we show that there is a very high potential to increase protection of ecoregions and vertebrate species by expanding the protected area network, but also identify considerable risk of ineffective outcomes due to land-use change and uncoordinated actions between countries. We use distribution data for 24,757 terrestrial vertebrates assessed under the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) ‘red list of threatened species’ 9 , and terrestrial ecoregions 10 (827), modified by land-use models for the present and 2040, and introduce techniques for global and balanced spatial conservation prioritization. First, we show that with a coordinated global protected area network expansion to 17% of terrestrial land, average protection of species ranges and ecoregions could triple. Second, if projected land-use change by 2040 (ref. 11 ) takes place, it becomes infeasible to reach the currently possible protection levels, and over 1,000 threatened species would lose more than 50% of their present effective ranges worldwide. Third, we demonstrate a major efficiency gap between national and global conservation priorities. Strong evidence is shown that further biodiversity loss is unavoidable unless international action is quickly taken to balance land-use and biodiversity conservation. The approach used here can serve as a framework for repeatable and quantitative assessment of efficiency, gaps and expansion of the global protected area network globally, regionally and nationally, considering current and projected land-use pressures.

Aim: To quantify and compare species coverage in priority areas for conservation identified using species richness as opposed to approaches that use individual species range maps. Location: Global. Methods: We compare the coverage of species when global priority areas for conservation are identified based on (1) twelve species richness maps of all and small-range amphibians, birds and mammals and all and small-range threatened (i.e., vulnerable, endangered and critically endangered) species; (2) weighted range size rarity, a richness measure corrected for range size; and (3) a complementarity-based analysis including species range maps for 21,075 terrestrial vertebrate species listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. We also assessed whether any combination of small-range and/or threatened species richness could be a suitable surrogate for a complementarity-based analysis by assessing species coverage in priority areas located using (1) richness of small-range species only; (2) richness of all threatened species only; and (3) richness of small-range and threatened species. Results: Our results show clear differences in the spatial pattern of priority areas for conservation among the prioritizations based on species richness, weighted range size rarity and species range maps, with the species richness-based priority areas being highly aggregated in the tropics and the species range map priority areas being more evenly spread among the global terrestrial area. We also find that identifying priority areas for conservation using species richness produces a lower coverage of species than priority areas based on complementarity methods and identified using species range maps, where just one species was left without any protection. Main Conclusions: As methods and software currently exist for processing large numbers of individual species distribution maps in spatial prioritization, the use of species richness appears to be an unnecessary simplification of biodiversity pattern.

Climate change is affecting biodiversity worldwide, but conservation responses are constrained by considerable uncertainty regarding the magnitude, rate and ecological consequences of expected climate change. Here we propose a framework to account for several sources of uncertainty in conservation prioritization. Within this framework we account for uncertainties arising from (i) species distributions that shift following climate change, (ii) basic connectivity requirements of species, (iii) alternative climate change scenarios and their impacts, (iv) in the modelling of species distributions, and (v) different levels of confidence about present and future. When future impacts of climate change are uncertain, robustness of decision-making can be improved by quantifying the risks and trade-offs associated with climate scenarios. Sensible prioritization that accounts simultaneously for the present and potential future distributions of species is achievable without overly jeopardising present-day conservation values. Doing so requires systematic treatment of uncertainties and testing of the sensitivity of results to assumptions about climate. We illustrate the proposed framework by identifying priority areas for amphibians and reptiles in Europe.

The challenge of balancing biodiversity protection with economic growth is epitomized by the development of renewable and unconventional energy, whose adoption is aimed at stemming the impacts of global climate change, yet has outpaced our understanding of biodiversity impacts. We evaluated the potential conflict between biodiversity protection and future electricity generation from renewable (wind farms, run-of-river hydro) and non-renewable (shale gas) sources in British Columbia (BC), Canada using three metrics: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, electricity cost, and overlap between future development and conservation priorities for several fish and wildlife groups - small-bodied vertebrates, large mammals, freshwater fish – and undisturbed landscapes. Sharp trade-offs in global versus regional biodiversity conservation exist for all energy technologies, and in BC they are currently smallest for wind energy: low GHG emissions, low-moderate overlap with top conservation priorities, and competitive energy cost. GHG emissions from shale gas are 1000 times higher than those from renewable sources, and run-of-river hydro has high overlap with conservation priorities for small-bodied vertebrates. When all species groups were considered simultaneously, run-of-river hydro had moderate overlap (0.56), while shale gas and onshore wind had low overlap with top conservation priorities (0.23 and 0.24, respectively). The unintended cost of distributed energy sources for regional biodiversity suggest that trade-offs based on more diverse metrics must be incorporated into energy planning.

Including threats in spatial conservation prioritization helps identify areas for conservation actions where biodiversity is at imminent risk of extinction. At the global level, an important limitation when identifying spatial priorities for conservation actions is the lack of information on the spatial distribution of threats. Here, we identify spatial conservation priorities under three prominent threats to biodiversity (residential and commercial development, agricultural expansion, and forest loss), which are primary drivers of habitat loss and threaten the persistence of the highest number of species in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, and for which spatial data is available. We first explore how global priority areas for the conservation of vertebrate (mammals, birds, and amphibians) species coded in the Red List as vulnerable to each threat differ spatially. We then identify spatial conservation priorities for all species vulnerable to all threats. Finally, we identify the potentially most threatened areas by overlapping the identified priority areas for conservation with maps for each threat. We repeat the same with four other well-known global conservation priority area schemes, namely Key Biodiversity Areas, Biodiversity Hotspots, the global Protected Area Network, and Wilderness Areas. We find that residential and commercial development directly threatens only about 4% of the global top 17% priority areas for species vulnerable under this threat. However, 50% of the high priority areas for species vulnerable to forest loss overlap with areas that have already experienced some forest loss. Agricultural expansion overlapped with ~20% of high priority areas. Biodiversity Hotspots had the greatest proportion of their total area under direct threat from all threats, while expansion of low intensity agriculture was found to pose an imminent threat to Wilderness Areas under future agricultural expansion. Our results identify areas where limited resources should be allocated to mitigate risks to vertebrate species from habitat loss.