Averting biodiversity collapse in tropical forest protected areas

Abstract

The rapid disruption of tropical forests probably imperils global biodiversity more than any other contemporary phenomenon(1-3). With deforestation advancing quickly, protected areas are increasingly becoming final refuges for threatened species and natural ecosystem processes. However, many protected areas in the tropics are themselves vulnerable to human encroachment and other environmental stresses(4-9). As pressures mount, it is vital to know whether existing reserves can sustain their biodiversity. A critical constraint in addressing this question has been that data describing a broad array of biodiversity groups have been unavailable for a sufficiently large and representative sample of reserves. Here we present a uniquely comprehensive data set on changes over the past 20 to 30 years in 31 functional groups of species and 21 potential drivers of environmental change, for 60 protected areas stratified across the world's major tropical regions. Our analysis reveals great variation in reserve 'health': about half of all reserves have been effective or performed passably, but the rest are experiencing an erosion of biodiversity that is often alarmingly widespread taxonomically and functionally. Habitat disruption, hunting and forest-product exploitation were the strongest predictors of declining reserve health. Crucially, environmental changes immediately outside reserves seemed nearly as important as those inside in determining their ecological fate, with changes inside reserves strongly mirroring those occurring around them. These findings suggest that tropical protected areas are often intimately linked ecologically to their surrounding habitats, and that a failure to stem broad-scale loss and degradation of such habitats could sharply increase the likelihood of serious biodiversity declines.

Metadata

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Laurance, William F. Useche, D. Carolina Rendeiro, Julio Kalka, Margareta Bradshaw, Corey J. A. Sloan, Sean P. Laurance, Susan G. Campbell, Mason Abernethy, Kate Alvarez, Patricia Arroyo-Rodriguez, Victor Ashton, Peter Benitez-Malvido, Julieta Blom, Allard Bobo, Kadiri S. Cannon, Charles H. Cao, Min Carroll, Richard Chapman, Colin Coates, Rosamond Cords, Marina Danielsen, Finn De Dijn, Bart Dinerstein, Eric Donnelly, Maureen A. Edwards, David Edwards, Felicity Farwig, Nina Fashing, Peter Forget, Pierre-Michel Foster, Mercedes Gale, George Harris, David Harrison, Rhett Hart, John Karpanty, Sarah Kress, W. John Krishnaswamy, Jagdish Logsdon, Willis Lovett, Jon Magnusson, William Maisels, Fiona Marshall, Andrew R. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4877-1018 McClearn, Deedra Mudappa, Divya Nielsen, Martin R. Pearson, Richard Pitman, Nigel van der Ploeg, Jan Plumptre, Andrew Poulsen, John Quesada, Mauricio Rainey, Hugo Robinson, Douglas Roetgers, Christiane Rovero, Francesco Scatena, Frederick Schulze, Christian Sheil, Douglas Struhsaker, Thomas Terborgh, John Thomas, Duncan Timm, Robert Urbina-Cardona, J. Nicolas Vasudevan, Karthikeyan Wright, S. Joseph Arias-G, Juan Carlos Arroyo, Luzmila Ashton, Mark Auzel, Philippe Babaasa, Dennis Babweteera, Fred Baker, Patrick Banki, Olaf Bass, Margot Bila-Isia, Inogwabini Blake, Stephen Brockelman, Warren Brokaw, Nicholas Bruehl, Carsten A. Bunyavejchewin, Sarayudh Chao, Jung-Tai Chave, Jerome Chellam, Ravi Clark, Connie J. Clavijo, Jose Congdon, Robert Corlett, Richard Dattaraja, H. S. Dave, Chittaranjan Davies, Glyn Beisiegel, Beatriz de Mello da Silva, Rosa de Nazarepaes Di Fiore, Anthony Diesmos, Arvin Dirzo, Rodolfo Doran-Sheehy, Diane Eaton, Mitchell Emmons, Louise Estrada, Alejandro Ewango, Corneille Fedigan, Linda Feer, Francois Fruth, Barbara Willis, Jacalyn Giacalone Goodale, Uromi Goodman, Steven Guix, Juan C. Guthiga, Paul Haber, William Hamer, Keith Herbinger, Ilka Hill, Jane https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1871-7715 Huang, Zhongliang Sun, I. Fang Ickes, Kalan Itoh, Akira Ivanauskas, Natalia Jackes, Betsy Janovec, John Janzen, Daniel Jiangming, Mo Jin, Chen Jones, Trevor Justiniano, Hermes Kalko, Elisabeth Kasangaki, Aventino Killeen, Timothy King, Hen-biau Klop, Erik Knott, Cheryl Kone, Inza Kudavidanage, Enoka Ribeiro, Jose Lahoz da Silva Lattke, John Laval, Richard Lawton, Robert Leal, Miguel Leighton, Mark Lentino, Miguel Leonel, Cristiane Lindsell, Jeremy Ling-Ling, Lee Linsenmair, K. Eduard Losos, Elizabeth Lugo, Ariel Lwanga, Jeremiah Mack, Andrew L. Martins, Marlucia McGraw, W. Scott McNab, Roan Montag, Luciano Thompson, Jo Myers Nabe-Nielsen, Jacob Nakagawa, Michiko Nepal, Sanjay Norconk, Marilyn Novotny, Vojtech O'Donnell, Sean Opiang, Muse Ouboter, Paul Parker, Kenneth Parthasarathy, N. Pisciotta, Katia Prawiradilaga, Dewi Pringle, Catherine Rajathurai, Subaraj Reichard, Ulrich Reinartz, Gay Renton, Katherine Reynolds, Glen Reynolds, Vernon Riley, Erin Roedel, Mark-Oliver Rothman, Jessica Round, Philip Sakai, Shoko Sanaiotti, Tania Savini, Tommaso Schaab, Gertrud Seidensticker, John Siaka, Alhaji Silman, Miles R. Smith, Thomas B. de Almeida, Samuel Soares Sodhi, Navjot Stanford, Craig Stewart, Kristine Stokes, Emma Stoner, Kathryn E. Sukumar, Raman Surbeck, Martin Tobler, Mathias Tscharntke, Teja Turkalo, Andrea Umapathy, Govindaswamy van Weerd, Merlijn Rivera, Jorge Vega Venkataraman, Meena Venn, Linda Verea, Carlos de Castilho, Carolina Volkmer Waltert, Matthias Wang, Benjamin Watts, David Weber, William West, Paige Whitacre, David Whitney, Ken Wilkie, David Williams, Stephen Wright, Debra D. Wright, Patricia Xiankai, Lu Yonzon, Pralad Zamzani, Franky
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© 2012, Macmillan Publishers Limited. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Nature. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy.
Dates:	Published: 12 September 2012
Institution:	The University of York
Academic Units:	The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Environment and Geography (York) The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Biology (York)
Depositing User:	Pure (York)
Date Deposited:	20 Dec 2013 01:01
Last Modified:	06 Aug 2024 23:08
Published Version:	https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11318
Status:	Published
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1038/nature11318
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:75038

CORE (COnnecting REpositories)

Averting biodiversity collapse in tropical forest protected areas

Abstract

Metadata

Download

Submitted Version

Export

Statistics