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ReportsAligning Conservation Priorities Across Taxa in Madagascar with High-Resolution Planning Tools
Globally, priority areas for biodiversity are relatively well known, yet few detailed plans exist to direct conservation action within them, despite urgent need. Madagascar, like other globally recognized biodiversity hot spots, has complex spatial patterns of endemism that differ among taxonomic groups, creating challenges for the selection of within-country priorities. We show, in an analysis of wide taxonomic and geographic breadth and high spatial resolution, that multitaxonomic rather than single-taxon approaches are critical for identifying areas likely to promote the persistence of most species. Our conservation prioritization, facilitated by newly available techniques, identifies optimal expansion sites for the Madagascar government's current goal of tripling the land area under protection. Our findings further suggest that high-resolution multitaxonomic approaches to prioritization may be necessary to ensure protection for biodiversity in other global hot spots.
1 Department of Environmental Sciences, Policy and Management, 137 Mulford Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3114, USA.
2 Réseau de la Biodiversité de Madagascar, Wildlife Conservation Society, Villa Ifanomezantsoa, Soavimbahoaka, Boîte Postale 8500, Antananarivo 101, Madagascar. 3 Metapopulation Research Group, Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Post Office Box 65, Viikinkaari 1, FI-00014, University of Helsinki, Finland. 4 AT&T Labs-Research, 180 Park Avenue, Florham Park, NJ07932, USA. 5 Department of Biology (Area 18), University of York, Post Office Box 373, York YO10 5YW, UK. 6 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond TW9 3AB, Surrey, UK. 7 Department of Entomology, California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, CA 94103, USA. 8 Zoologische Staatssammlung München, Münchhausenstrasse 21, 81247 München, Germany. 9 Department of Biology, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA 30460, USA. 10 Conservation International, Center for Applied Biodiversity Science, 2011 Crystal Drive, Suite 500, Arlington, VA 22202, USA. 11 International Rice Research Institute, Los Baños, Philippines. 12 Department of Entomology, Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK. 13 Center for Conservation and Research, Henry Doorly Zoo, Omaha, NE 68107, USA. 14 Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079, USA. 15 American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, NY 10024-5192, USA. 16 Missouri Botanical Garden, Post Office Box 299, St. Louis, MO 63166-0299, USA. 17 Zoological Institute, Technical University of Braunschweig, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany. 18 Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, 3101 Valley Life Sciences Building, Berkeley, CA 94720-3160, USA. 19 Department of Anthropology, State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ckremen{at}nature.berkeley.edu
The editors suggest the following Related Resources on Science sites:In Science Magazine
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These authors contributed equally to this work. Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)
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