Prioritizing conserved areas threatened by wildfire and fragmentation for monitoring and management
In many parts of the world, the combined effects of habitat fragmentation and altered disturbance regimes pose a significant threat to biodiversity. This is particularly true in Mediterranean-type ecosystems (MTEs), which tend to be fire-prone, species rich, and heavily impacted by human land use. Given the spatial complexity of overlapping threats and species’ vulnerability along with limited conservation budgets, methods are needed for prioritizing areas for monitoring and management in these regions. We developed a multi-criteria Pareto ranking methodology for prioritizing spatial units for conservation and applied it to fire threat, habitat fragmentation threat, species richness, and genetic biodiversity criteria in San Diego County, California, USA. We summarized the criteria and Pareto ranking results (from west to east) within the maritime, coastal, transitional, inland climate zones within San Diego County. Fire threat increased from the maritime zone eastward to the transitional zone, then decreased in the mountainous inland climate zone. Number of fires and fire return interval departure were strongly negatively correlated. Fragmentation threats, particularly road density and development density, were highest in the maritime climate zone, declined towards the east, and were positively correlated. Species richness criteria showed distributions among climate zones similar to those of the fire threat variables. When using species richness and fire threat criteria, most lower-ranked (higher conservation priority) units occurred in the coastal and transitional zones. When considering genetic biodiversity, lower-ranked units occurred more often in the mountainous inland zone. With Pareto ranking, there is no need to select criteria weights as part of the decision-making process. However, negative correlations and larger numbers of criteria can result in more units assigned to the same rank. Pareto ranking is broadly applicable and can be used as a standalone decision analysis method or in conjunction with other methods.
Citation Information
| Publication Year | 2018 |
|---|---|
| Title | Prioritizing conserved areas threatened by wildfire and fragmentation for monitoring and management |
| DOI | 10.1371/journal.pone.0200203 |
| Authors | Jeff A. Tracey, Carlton J. Rochester, Stacie A. Hathaway, Kristine L. Preston, Alexandra D. Syphard, Amy G. Vandergast, James E. Diffendorfer, Janet Franklin, Jason B. MacKenzie, Tomas A. Oberbauer, Scott Tremor, Clark S. Winchell, Robert N. Fisher |
| Publication Type | Article |
| Publication Subtype | Journal Article |
| Series Title | PLoS ONE |
| Index ID | 70199206 |
| Record Source | USGS Publications Warehouse |
| USGS Organization | Western Ecological Research Center |
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Raster data files for Prioritizing conserved areas threatened by wildfire for monitoring and management.
Amy Vandergast
Supervisory Research Geneticist
Jay Diffendorfer
Research Ecologist
Robert N Fisher
Supervisory Research Biologist
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- Data
Raster data files for Prioritizing conserved areas threatened by wildfire for monitoring and management.
The data set consists of 12 input data rasters that cover San Diego County, California. These input rasters represent criteria used in a Pareto ranking algorithm in the manuscript. These include three rasters related to fire threats, three rasters related to habitat fragmentation threats, four rasters related to species biodiversity, and two rasters related to genetic biodiversity. (see the PLOS O - Connect
Amy Vandergast
Supervisory Research GeneticistEmailPhoneJay Diffendorfer
Research EcologistEmailPhoneRobert N Fisher
Supervisory Research BiologistEmailPhone