Size matters: the value of small populations for wintering waterbirds

Protecting systematically selected areas of land is a major step towards biodiversity conservation worldwide. Indeed, the identification and designation of protected areas more often than not forms a core component of both national and international conservation policies. In this paper we provide an overview of those Special Protection Areas and Ramsar Sites that have been classified in Great Britain as of 1998/99 for a selection of wintering waterbird species, using bird count data from the Wetland Bird Survey. The performance of this network of sites is remarkable, particularly in comparison with published analyses of networks elsewhere in the world. Nevertheless, the current site-based approach, whilst having the great benefit of simplicity, is deliberately biased towards aggregating species at the expense of the more dispersed distribution species. To ensure that the network continues successfully to protect nationally and internationally important waterbird populations, efforts now need to concentrate on the derivation of species-specific representation targets and, in particular, the ways in which these can be incorporated into the site selection process. Although these analyses concern the performance of protected areas for waterbirds in Great Britain, the results have wide-ranging importance for conservation planning in general and the design of protected area networks

Observed and predicted effects of climate change on species abundance in protected areas

The dynamic nature and diversity of species' responses to climate change poses significant difficulties for developing robust, long-term conservation strategies. One key question is whether existing protected area networks will remain effective in a changing climate. To test this, we developed statistical models that link climate to the abundance of internationally important bird populations in northwestern Europe. Spatial climate-abundance models were able to predict 56% of the variation in recent 30-year population trends. Using these models, future climate change resulting in 4.0 degrees C global warming was projected to cause declines of at least 25% for more than half of the internationally important populations considered. Nonetheless, most EU Special Protection Areas in the UK were projected to retain species in sufficient abundances to maintain their legal status, and generally sites that are important now were projected to be important in the future. The biological and legal resilience of this network of protected areas is derived from the capacity for turnover in the important species at each site as species' distributions and abundances alter in response to climate. Current protected areas are therefore predicted to remain important for future conservation in a changing climate.</p