• Biodiversity are under threat, from habitat loss and degradation, invasive species, climate change, pollution and over-exploitation
• Protected areas are an important tool for biodiversity conservation.
• Biodiversity patterns are not uniformly distributed. Need to know where to preserve and manage it!
• The design of protected areas and reserve networks should foster representation of biodiversity and its persistence.
• Reserves need to be sited efficiently to represent biodiversity.
• Size, shape and connectivity of reserves and relationship with the surrounding landscape matrix are essential considerations for biodiversity persistence.

Maintaining biodiversity over time

• Population persistence (viability)
• Maintaining ecological processes E.g. migrations
• Maintaining evolutionary processes
• Potential for adaptation within populations (genetic diversity)
• Selecting areas where rapid speciation is occurring
• Response to climate change

Size and shape

Larger size -->

• More species (interactions, functions), S-A relationship
• More habitats (interactions, functions)
• Larger populations –
• Protects vulnerable species
  • Area demanding: large-bodied, high-tropic level, rare
  • Habitat specialists (if habitat included)
  • Species requiring multiple habitat types
• Shape --> Reduced edge/area ratio, edge effects
• Disturbance regime: maintenance of disturbance-generated patch heterogeneity
• Includes whole functional units
• Includes whole environmental gradients

Connectivity

• Isolation is a key factor causing loss of species from reserves
• Preventing gene flow, maintenance of genetic diversity
• Reducing recolonization following extinction (rescue effect)
• Preventing access between summer/winter grounds for migratory species
• Preventing access to multiple habitat types needed for different life stages
• Preventing response to global warming

Disturbance Regime

• Disturbance promotes habitat heterogeneity
• By resetting successional sequence in parts of the landscape
• Creating patchiness in the landscape which is determined by the temporal and spatial scale of the disturbance(s)