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Protected areas conserve biodiversity and ecosystem functions but might impede local economic growth. Understanding the global patterns and predictors of different relationships between protected area effectiveness and neighboring community economic growth can inform better implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. We assessed 10,143 protected areas globally with matched samples to address the non-random location of protected areas. Our results show that protected areas resist human-induced land cover changes and do not limit nightlight increases in neighboring settlements. This result is robust, using different matching techniques, parameter settings, and selection of covariates. We identify four types of relationships between land cover changes and nightlight changes for each protected area: "synergy," "retreat," and two tradeoff relationships. About half of the protected areas (47.5%) retain their natural land cover and do so despite an increase of nightlights in the neighboring communities. This synergy relationship is the most common globally but varies between biomes and continents. Synergy is less frequent in the Amazon, Southeast Asia, and some developing areas, where most biodiversity resides and which suffer more from poverty. Smaller protected areas and those with better access to cities, moderate road density, and better baseline economic conditions have a higher probability of reaching synergy. Our results are promising, as the expansion of protected areas and increased species protection will rely more on conserving the human-modified landscape with smaller protected areas. Future interventions should address local development and biodiversity conservation together to achieve more co-benefits., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests The authors declare no competing interests., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Experience tells us how to maximize debt-for-nature effectiveness.

The ongoing destruction of habitats in the tropics accelerates the current rate of species extinction. Range-restricted species are exceptionally vulnerable, yet we have insufficient knowledge about their protection. Species' current distributions, range sizes, and protection gaps are crucial to determining conservation priorities. Here, we identified priority range-restricted bird species and their conservation hotspots in the Northern Andes. We employed maps of the Area of Habitat (AOH), that better reflect their current distributions than existing maps. AOH provides unprecedented resolution and maps a species in the detail essential for practical conservation actions. We estimated protection within each species' AOH and for the cumulative distribution of all 335 forest-dependent range-restricted birds across the Northern Andes. For the latter, we also calculated protection across the elevational gradient. We estimated how much additional protection community lands (Indigenous and Afro-Latin American lands) would contribute if they were conservation-focused. AOHs ranged from 8 to 141,000 km 2 . We identified four conservation priorities based on cumulative species richness: the number of AOHs stacked per unit area. These priorities are high-resolution mapped representations of Endemic Bird Areas for the Tropical Andes that we consider critically important. Protected areas cover only 31% of the cumulative AOH, but community lands could add 19% more protection. Sixty-two per cent of the 335 species have ranges smaller than their published estimates, yet IUCN designates only 23% of these as Threatened. We identified 50 species as top conservation priorities. Most of these concentrate in areas of low protection near community lands and at middle elevations where, on average, only 34% of the land is protected. We highlight the importance of collaborative efforts among stakeholders: governments should support private and community-based conservation practices to protect the region with the most range-restricted birds worldwide., Competing Interests: Stuart L. Pimm is an Academic Editor for PeerJ but he does not take part in the selection of nor influence the suggested editors. The other authors declare that they have no competing interests., (©2024 Medina et al.)

The influence of protected areas on the growth of African savannah elephant populations is inadequately known. Across southern Africa, elephant numbers grew at 0.16% annually for the past quarter century. Locally, much depends on metapopulation dynamics-the size and connections of individual populations. Population numbers in large, connected, and strictly protected areas typically increased, were less variable from year to year, and suffered less from poaching. Conversely, populations in buffer areas that are less protected but still connected have more variation in growth from year to year. Buffer areas also differed more in their growth rates, likely due to more threats and dispersal opportunities in the face of such dangers. Isolated populations showed consistently high growth due to a lack of emigration. This suggests that "fortress" conservation generally maintains high growth, while anthropogenic-driven source-sink dynamics within connected conservation clusters drive stability in core areas and variability in buffers.

Local studies show upslope shifts in the distribution of tropical birds in response to warming temperatures. Unanswered is whether these upward shifts occur regionally across many species. We considered a nearly 2000-km length of the Northern Andes, where deforestation, temperature, and extreme weather events have increased during the past decades. Range-restricted bird species are particularly vulnerable to such events and occur in exceptionally high numbers in this region. Using abundant crowd-sourced data from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology database, eBird, and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, we documented distributions of nearly 200 such species. We examined whether species shifted their elevational ranges over time by comparing observed versus expected occurrences below a low elevational threshold and above a high elevational threshold for 2 periods: before and after 2005. We predicted fewer observations at lower elevations (those below the threshold) and more at upper elevations (those above the threshold) after 2005. We also tested for deforestation effects at lower elevations within each species' distribution ranges. We compared relative forest loss with the differences between observed and expected occurrences across the elevational range. Species' retreats from lower elevations were ubiquitous and involved a 23-40% decline in prevalence at the lowest elevations. Increases at higher elevations were not consistent. The retreats occurred across a broad spectrum of species, from predominantly lowland to predominantly highland. Because deforestation showed no relationship with species retreats, we contend that a warming climate is the most parsimonious explanation for such shifts., (© 2023 The Authors. Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology.)

Loss of habitat can take many forms, ranging from the fragmentation of once-continuous habitat to the slow erosion of populations across continents. Usually, the harm leading to biodiversity loss is not immediately obvious: there is an extinction debt. Most modelling research of extinction debt has focussed on relatively rapid losses of habitat with species loss happening in response afterwards. In this paper, using a niche-orientated community model we compare and contrast two different mechanisms and find contrasting patterns of extinction debt. From small fragments, we typically see the rapid initial loss of many species, followed by a slower loss of species on larger timescales. When we consider slow incremental declines of population sizes, we find initially a slow rate of extinction which subsequently increases exponentially. In such cases, the delayed extinctions may go undetected initially both because the extinctions may be small relative to background randomness and because rate itself is not constant and takes time to reach its maximum., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Halley, Pimm. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

We consider the distribution of fruit pigeons of the genera Ptilinopus and Ducula on the island of New Guinea. Of the 21 species, between six and eight coexist inside humid lowland forests. We conducted or analyzed 31 surveys at 16 different sites, resurveying some sites in different years. The species coexisting at any single site in a single year are a highly nonrandom selection of the species to which that site is geographically accessible. Their sizes are both much more widely spread and more uniformly spaced than in random sets of species drawn from the locally available species pool. We also present a detailed case study of a highly mobile species that has been recorded on every ornithologically explored island in the West Papuan island group west of New Guinea. That species' rareness on just three well-surveyed islands within the group cannot be due to an inability to reach them. Instead, its local status decreases from abundant resident to rare vagrant in parallel with increasing weight proximity of the other resident species.

Southern Africa spans nearly 7 million km2 and contains approximately 80% of the world's savannah elephants (Loxodonta africana) mostly living in isolated protected areas. Here we ask what are the prospects for improving the connections between these populations? We combine 1.2 million telemetry observations from 254 elephants with spatial data on environmental factors and human land use across eight southern African countries. Telemetry data show what natural features limit elephant movement and what human factors, including fencing, further prevent or restrict dispersal. The resulting intersection of geospatial data and elephant presences provides a map of suitable landscapes that are environmentally appropriate for elephants and where humans allow elephants to occupy. We explore the environmental and anthropogenic constraints in detail using five case studies. Lastly, we review all the major potential connections that may remain to connect a fragmented elephant metapopulation and document connections that are no longer feasible., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

The lives lost and economic costs of viral zoonotic pandemics have steadily increased over the past century. Prominent policymakers have promoted plans that argue the best ways to address future pandemic catastrophes should entail, "detecting and containing emerging zoonotic threats." In other words, we should take actions only after humans get sick. We sharply disagree. Humans have extensive contact with wildlife known to harbor vast numbers of viruses, many of which have not yet spilled into humans. We compute the annualized damages from emerging viral zoonoses. We explore three practical actions to minimize the impact of future pandemics: better surveillance of pathogen spillover and development of global databases of virus genomics and serology, better management of wildlife trade, and substantial reduction of deforestation. We find that these primary pandemic prevention actions cost less than 1/20th the value of lives lost each year to emerging viral zoonoses and have substantial cobenefits.

Accurate maps of species ranges are essential to inform conservation, but time-consuming to produce and update. Given the pace of change of knowledge about species distributions and shifts in ranges under climate change and land use, a need exists for timely mapping approaches that enable batch processing employing widely available data. We develop a systematic approach of batch-processing range maps and derived Area of Habitat maps for terrestrial bird species with published ranges below 125,000 km2 in Central and South America. (Area of Habitat is the habitat available to a species within its range.) We combine existing range maps with the rapidly expanding crowd-sourced eBird data of presences and absences from frequently surveyed locations, plus readily accessible, high resolution satellite data on forest cover and elevation to map the Area of Habitat available to each species. Users can interrogate the maps produced to see details of the observations that contributed to the ranges. Previous estimates of Areas of Habitat were constrained within the published ranges and thus were, by definition, smaller-typically about 30%. This reflects how little habitat within suitable elevation ranges exists within the published ranges. Our results show that on average, Areas of Habitat are 12% larger than published ranges, reflecting the often-considerable extent that eBird records expand the known distributions of species. Interestingly, there are substantial differences between threatened and non-threatened species. Some 40% of Critically Endangered, 43% of Endangered, and 55% of Vulnerable species have Areas of Habitat larger than their published ranges, compared with 31% for Near Threatened and Least Concern species. The important finding for conservation is that threatened species are generally more widespread than previously estimated., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of IUCN.

The U.N. has declared 2021-2030 the 'decade of restoration' (https://www.decadeonrestoration.org). This initiative aspires to many actions, but its agenda must include 'reconnecting nature'. Even when natural habitats remain, they often come in fragments too small or isolated to sustain viable populations. Human activities surround habitats with unsuitable areas or constrict animals' movements with artificial barriers, such as roads or fences. The harm this fragmentation causes is evident. Here, we discuss various actions to mitigate its problems, seeking explicit evidence of their efficacy. These actions range from small-scale, controlled experiments to continent-wide programmes to allow species the freedom to roam. Even simple connections, such as highway overpasses or tunnels, usually allow movement such that the genetic and demographic problems that beset small, isolated populations may be diminished. Showing that species move when we give them the chance to do so may be a sufficient measure of success, even if we do not always understand the consequences in detail., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

In addition to habitat loss and fragmentation, demographic processes-the vagaries of births, deaths and sex ratio fluctuations-pose substantial threats to wild giant panda populations. Additionally, climate change and plans for the Giant Panda National Park may influence (in opposing directions) the extinction risk for wild giant pandas. The Fourth National Giant Panda Census showed pandas living in 33 isolated populations. An estimated 259 animals live in 25 of these groups, ~14% of the total population. We used individual-based models to simulate time series of these small populations for 100 years. We analysed the spatial pattern of their risk of extinction under current conditions and multiple climate change models. Furthermore, we consider the impact of the proposed Giant Panda National Park. Results showed that 15 populations face a risk >90%, and for 3 other populations the risk is >50%. Of the 15 most at-risk populations, national parks can protect only 3. Under the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 climate change scenario, the 33 populations will probably further divide into 56 populations. Some 41 of them will face a risk >50% and 35 face a risk >90%. Although national parks will probably connect some fragmented habitats, 26 populations will be outside national park planning. Our study gives practical advice for conservation policies and management and has implications for the conservation of other species in the world that live in isolated, fragmented habitats., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

Conservation science is a new and evolving discipline, so it seems prudent to explore different approaches. That said, we should examine what we know and, vitally, what works to conserve biodiversity and what does not. Ecosystem processes determine the fate of many species, but many attempts to theorise about ecosystems have led to ever more fanciful descriptions of nature. All conservation is local. It will only succeed if we find ways to accommodate people and nature. That does not mean indigenous knowledge acquired over millennia will be sufficient to our ever more overcrowded planet. Observational and experimental studies of small populations of wild species, however, do provide practical insights into how to manage biodiversity across much larger geographical extents.

The cause of deaths of 350 elephants in 2020 in a relatively small unprotected area of northern Botswana is unknown, and may never be known. Media speculations about it ignore ecological realities. Worse, they make conjectures that can be detrimental to wildlife and sometimes discredit conservation incentives. A broader understanding of the ecological and conservation issues speaks to elephant management across the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area that extends across Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Our communication addresses these. Malicious poisoning and poaching are unlikely to have played a role. Other species were unaffected, and elephant carcases had their tusks intact. Restriction of freshwater supplies that force elephants to use pans as a water source possibly polluted by blue-green algae blooms is a possible cause, but as yet not supported by evidence. No other species were involved. A contagious disease is the more probable one. Fences and a deep channel of water confine these elephants' dispersal. These factors explain the elephants' relatively high population growth rate despite a spell of increased poaching during 2014-2018. While the deaths represent only ~2% of the area's elephants, the additive effects of poaching and stress induced by people protecting their crops cause alarm. Confinement and relatively high densities probably explain why the die-off occurred only here. It suggests a re-alignment or removal of fences that restrict elephant movements and limits year-round access to freshwater., Competing Interests: Stuart Pimm is an Academic Editor for PeerJ., (© 2021 van Aarde et al.)

How has the global network of protected areas developed - and which decisions have guided this development? Answering these questions may give insight into what might be possible in the next decade. In 2021, China will host the Convention of Biological Diversity's Conference, which will influence the coming decade's agenda. We consider how China expanded its protected areas in the last half-century. Did concerns about biodiversity protection drive those decisions, or were other factors responsible? Like other countries, China has protected remote places with few people that are unusually cold or dry or both. Despite that, species with small geographical ranges that have the highest risk of extinction are better protected than expected. Importantly, while the growth of total area and number of protected areas has slowed for the last decade, increases in protection of forested ecosystems and the species they contain have steadily increased. China's future reserve expansion must consider where to protect biodiversity, not just how much area to protect., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Long-term studies to understand biodiversity changes remain scarce-especially so for tropical mountains. We examined changes from 1911 to 2016 in the bird community of the cloud forest of San Antonio, a mountain ridge in the Colombian Andes. We evaluated the effects of past land-use change and assessed species vulnerability to climate disruption. Forest cover decreased from 95% to 50% by 1959, and 33 forest species were extirpated. From 1959 to 1990, forest cover remained stable, and an additional 15 species were lost-a total of 29% of the forest bird community. Thereafter, forest cover increased by 26% and 17 species recolonized the area. The main cause of extirpations was the loss of connections to adjacent forests. Of the 31 (19%) extirpated birds, 25 have ranges peripheral to San Antonio, mostly in the lowlands. Most still occurred regionally, but broken forest connections limited their recolonization. Other causes of extirpation were hunting, wildlife trade, and water diversion. Bird community changes included a shift from predominantly common species to rare species; forest generalists replaced forest specialists that require old growth, and functional groups, such as large-body frugivores and nectarivores, declined disproportionally. All water-dependent birds were extirpated. Of the remaining 122 forest species, 19 are vulnerable to climate disruption, 10 have declined in abundance, and 4 are threatened. Our results show unequivocal species losses and changes in community structure and abundance at the local scale. We found species were extirpated after habitat loss and fragmentation, but forest recovery stopped extirpations and helped species repopulate. Land-use changes increased species vulnerability to climate change, and we suggest reversing landscape transformation may restore biodiversity and improve resistance to future threats., (© 2019 Society for Conservation Biology.)

As a landscape becomes increasingly fragmented through habitat loss, the individual patches become smaller and more isolated and thus less likely to sustain a local population. Metapopulation theory is appropriate for analyzing fragmented landscapes because it combines empirical landscape features with species-specific information to produce direct information on population extinction risks. This approach contrasts with descriptions of habitat fragments, which provide only indirect information on risk. Combining a spatially explicit metapopulation model with empirical data on endemic species' ranges and maps of habitat cover, we calculated the metapopulation capacity-a measure of a landscape's ability to sustain a metapopulation. Mangroves provide an ideal model landscape because they are of conservation concern and their patch boundaries are easily delineated. For 2000-20015, we calculated global metapopulation capacity for 99 metapopulations of 32 different bird species endemic to mangroves. Northern Australia and Southeast Asia had the highest richness of mangrove endemic birds. The Caribbean, Pacific coast of Central America, Madagascar, Borneo, and isolated patches in Southeast Asia in Myanmar and Malaysia had the highest metapopulation losses. Regions with the highest loss of habitat area were not necessarily those with the highest loss of metapopulation capacity. Often, it was not a matter of how much, but how the habitat was lost. Our method can be used by managers to evaluate and prioritize a landscape for metapopulation persistence., (© 2019 The Authors. Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology.)

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species includes assessment of extinction risk for 98 512 species, plus documentation of their range, habitat, elevation, and other factors. These range, habitat and elevation data can be matched with terrestrial land cover and elevation datasets to map the species' area of habitat (AOH; also known as extent of suitable habitat; ESH). This differs from the two spatial metrics used for assessing extinction risk in the IUCN Red List criteria: extent of occurrence (EOO) and area of occupancy (AOO). AOH can guide conservation, for example, through targeting areas for field surveys, assessing proportions of species' habitat within protected areas, and monitoring habitat loss and fragmentation. We recommend that IUCN Red List assessments document AOH wherever practical., (Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

"Sustainability", "resilience", and other terms group under the heading of "stability." Their ubiquity speaks to a vital need to characterise changes in complex social and environmental systems. In a bewildering array of terms, practical measurements are essential to permit comparisons and so untangle underlying relationships.

To counter their widespread loss, global aspirations are for no net loss of remaining wetlands [1]. We examine whether this goal alone is sufficient for managing China's wetlands, for they constitute 10% of the world's total. Analyzing wetland changes between 2000 and 2015 using 30-m-resolution satellite images, we show that China's wetlands expanded by 27,614 km 2 but lost 26,066 km 2 -a net increase of 1,548 km 2 (or 0.4%). This net change hides considerable complexities in the types of wetlands created and destroyed. The area of open water surface increased by 9,110 km 2 , but natural wetlands-henceforth "marshes"-decreased by 7,562 km 2 . Of the expanded wetlands, restoration policies contributed 24.5% and dam construction contributed 20.8%. Climate change accounted for 23.6% but is likely to involve a transient increase due to melting glaciers. Of the lost wetlands, agricultural and urban expansion contributed 47.7% and 13.8%, respectively. The increase in wetlands from conservation efforts (6,765 km 2 ) did not offset human-caused wetland losses (16,032 km 2 ). The wetland changes may harm wildlife. The wetland loss in east China threatens bird migration across eastern Asia [2]. Open water from dam construction flooded the original habitats of threatened terrestrial species and affected aquatic species by fragmenting wetland habitats [3]. Thus, the "no net loss" target measures total changes without considering changes in composition and the corresponding ecological functions. It may result in "paper offsets" and should be used carefully as a target for wetland conservation., (Copyright © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

We discuss institutional reforms to China's protected area management. Currently (as elsewhere), protected areas suffer fragmented management, lack of a comprehensive classification, inadequate coverage of biodiversity and ecosystem services, and divided, inconsistent legislation. We recommend establishing a new system of protected area management that can address past difficulties by using ongoing institutional reforms as unprecedented opportunities., (Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

It is theoretically possible to protect large fractions of species in relatively small regions. For plants, 85% of species occur entirely within just over a third of the Earth's land surface, carefully optimized to maximize the species captured. Well-known vertebrate taxa show similar patterns. Protecting half of Earth might not be necessary, but would it be sufficient given the current trends of protection? The predilection of national governments is to protect areas that are "wild," that is, typically remote, cold, or arid. Unfortunately, those areas often hold relatively few species. Wild places likely afford the easier opportunities for the future expansion of protected areas, with the expansion into human-dominated landscapes the greater challenge. We identify regions that are not currently protected, but that are wild, and consider which of them hold substantial numbers of especially small-ranged vertebrate species. We assess how successful the strategy of protecting the wilder half of Earth might be in conserving biodiversity. It is far from sufficient. (Protecting large wild places for reasons other than biodiversity protection, such as carbon sequestration and other ecosystem services, might still have importance.) Unexpectedly, we also show that, despite the bias in establishing large protected areas in wild places to date, numerous small protected areas are in biodiverse places. They at least partially protect significant fractions of especially small-ranged species. So, while a preoccupation with protecting large areas for the sake of getting half of Earth might achieve little for biodiversity, there is more progress in protecting high-biodiversity areas than currently appreciated. Continuing to prioritize the right parts of Earth, not just the total area protected, is what matters for biodiversity.

The notion of a 'safe operating space for biodiversity' is vague and encourages harmful policies. Attempts to fix it strip it of all meaningful content. Ecology is rapidly gaining insights into the connections between biodiversity and ecosystem stability. We have no option but to understand ecological complexity and act accordingly., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Assessing the numbers and distribution of threatened species is a central challenge in conservation, often made difficult because the species of concern are rare and elusive. For some predators, this may be compounded by their being sparsely distributed over large areas. Such is the case with the cheetah Acinonyx jubatus. The IUCN Red List process solicits comments, is democratic, transparent, widely-used, and has recently assessed the species. Here, we present additional methods to that process and provide quantitative approaches that may afford greater detail and a benchmark against which to compare future assessments. The cheetah poses challenges, but also affords unique opportunities. It is photogenic, allowing the compilation of thousands of crowd-sourced data. It is also persecuted for killing livestock, enabling estimation of local population densities from the numbers persecuted. Documented instances of persecution in areas with known human and livestock density mean that these data can provide an estimate of where the species may or may not occur in areas without observational data. Compilations of extensive telemetry data coupled with nearly 20,000 additional observations from 39 sources show that free-ranging cheetahs were present across approximately 789,700 km 2 of Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe (56%, 22%, 12% and 10% respectively) from 2010 to 2016, with an estimated adult population of 3,577 animals. We identified a further 742,800 km 2 of potential cheetah habitat within the study region with low human and livestock densities, where another ∼3,250 cheetahs may occur. Unlike many previous estimates, we make the data available and provide explicit information on exactly where cheetahs occur, or are unlikely to occur. We stress the value of gathering data from public sources though these data were mostly from well-visited protected areas. There is a contiguous, transboundary population of cheetah in southern Africa, known to be the largest in the world. We suggest that this population is more threatened than believed due to the concentration of about 55% of free-ranging individuals in two ecoregions. This area overlaps with commercial farmland with high persecution risk; adult cheetahs were removed at the rate of 0.3 individuals per 100 km 2 per year. Our population estimate for confirmed cheetah presence areas is 11% lower than the IUCN's current assessment for the same region, lending additional support to the recent call for the up-listing of this species from vulnerable to endangered status., Competing Interests: Stuart Pimm is an Academic Editor for PeerJ.

The conservation status of the iconic giant panda is a barometer of global conservation efforts. The IUCN Red List has downgraded the panda's extinction risk from "endangered" to "vulnerable". Newly obtained, detailed GIS and remotely sensed data applied consistently over the last four decades show that panda habitat covered less area and was more fragmented in 2013 than in 1988 when the species was listed as endangered.

The Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania and the Atlantic Forest of Brazil are two of the most fragmented biodiversity hotspots. Species-area relationships predict that their habitat fragments will experience a substantial loss of species. Most of these extinctions will occur over an extended time, and therefore, reconnecting fragments could prevent species losses and allow locally extinct species to recolonize former habitats. An empirical relaxation half-life vs. area relationship for tropical bird communities estimates the time that it takes to lose one-half of all species that will be eventually lost. We use it to estimate the increase in species persistence by regenerating a forest connection 1 km in width among the largest and closest fragments at 11 locations. In the Eastern Arc Mountains, regenerating 8,134 ha of forest would create >316,000 ha in total of restored contiguous forest. More importantly, it would increase the persistence time for species by a factor of 6.8 per location or ∼2,272 years, on average, relative to individual fragments. In the Atlantic Forest, regenerating 6,452 ha of forest would create >251,000 ha in total of restored contiguous forest and enhance species persistence by a factor of 13.0 per location or ∼5,102 years, on average, relative to individual fragments. Rapidly regenerating forest among fragments is important, because mean time to the first determined extinction across all fragments is 7 years. We estimate the cost of forest regeneration at $21-$49 million dollars. It could provide one of the highest returns on investment for biodiversity conservation worldwide., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Migratory seabirds face threats from climate change and a variety of anthropogenic disturbances. Although most seabird research has focused on the ecology of individuals at the colony, technological advances now allow researchers to track seabird movements at sea and during migration. We combined telemetry data on Onychoprion fuscatus (sooty terns) with a long-term capture-mark-recapture dataset from the Dry Tortugas National Park to map the movements at sea for this species, calculate estimates of mortality, and investigate the impact of hurricanes on a migratory seabird. Included in the latter analysis is information on the locations of recovered bands from deceased individuals wrecked by tropical storms. We present the first known map of sooty tern migration in the Atlantic Ocean. Our results indicate that the birds had minor overlaps with areas affected by the major 2010 oil spill and a major shrimp fishery. Indices of hurricane strength and occurrence are positively correlated with annual mortality and indices of numbers of wrecked birds. As climate change may lead to an increase in severity and frequency of major hurricanes, this may pose a long-term problem for this colony., Competing Interests: Stuart L. Pimm is an Academic Editor for PeerJ.

A recent report assessing the world's plant species finds continuing progress in completing the taxonomic catalog. However, many undescribed species remain. The report concludes that, presently, 21% of known species risk extinction. We show this statement applies to the short-term and ignores the as-yet undescribed species, which are also likely at risk of extinction. Human actions will extirpate many more by the end of this century., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Savannas once constituted the range of many species that human encroachment has now reduced to a fraction of their former distribution. Many survive only in protected areas. Poaching reduces the savanna elephant, even where protected, likely to the detriment of savanna ecosystems. While resources go into estimating elephant populations, an ecological benchmark by which to assess counts is lacking. Knowing how many elephants there are and how many poachers kill is important, but on their own, such data lack context. We collated savanna elephant count data from 73 protected areas across the continent estimated to hold ~50% of Africa's elephants and extracted densities from 18 broadly stable population time series. We modeled these densities using primary productivity, water availability, and an index of poaching as predictors. We then used the model to predict stable densities given current conditions and poaching for all 73 populations. Next, to generate ecological benchmarks, we predicted such densities for a scenario of zero poaching. Where historical data are available, they corroborate or exceed benchmarks. According to recent counts, collectively, the 73 savanna elephant populations are at 75% of the size predicted based on current conditions and poaching levels. However, populations are at <25% of ecological benchmarks given a scenario of zero poaching (~967,000)-a total deficit of ~730,000 elephants. Populations in 30% of the 73 protected areas were <5% of their benchmarks, and the median current density as a percentage of ecological benchmark across protected areas was just 13%. The ecological context provided by these benchmark values, in conjunction with ongoing census projects, allow efficient targeting of conservation efforts.

The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List classifies species according to their risk of extinction, informing global to local conservation decisions. Unfortunately, important geospatial data do not explicitly or efficiently enter this process. Rapid growth in the availability of remotely sensed observations provides fine-scale data on elevation and increasingly sophisticated characterizations of land cover and its changes. These data readily show that species are likely not present within many areas within the overall envelopes of their distributions. Additionally, global databases on protected areas inform how extensively ranges are protected. We selected 586 endemic and threatened forest bird species from six of the world's most biodiverse and threatened places (Atlantic Forest of Brazil, Central America, Western Andes of Colombia, Madagascar, Sumatra, and Southeast Asia). The Red List deems 18% of these species to be threatened (15 critically endangered, 29 endangered, and 64 vulnerable). Inevitably, after refining ranges by elevation and forest cover, ranges shrink. Do they do so consistently? For example, refined ranges of critically endangered species might reduce by (say) 50% but so might the ranges of endangered, vulnerable, and nonthreatened species. Critically, this is not the case. We find that 43% of species fall below the range threshold where comparable species are deemed threatened. Some 210 bird species belong in a higher-threat category than the current Red List placement, including 189 species that are currently deemed nonthreatened. Incorporating readily available spatial data substantially increases the numbers of species that should be considered at risk and alters priority areas for conservation.

Human actions challenge nature in many ways. Ecological responses are ineluctably complex, demanding measures that describe them succinctly. Collectively, these measures encapsulate the overall 'stability' of the system. Many international bodies, including the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, broadly aspire to maintain or enhance ecological stability. Such bodies frequently use terms pertaining to stability that lack clear definition. Consequently, we cannot measure them and so they disconnect from a large body of theoretical and empirical understanding. We assess the scientific and policy literature and show that this disconnect is one consequence of an inconsistent and one-dimensional approach that ecologists have taken to both disturbances and stability. This has led to confused communication of the nature of stability and the level of our insight into it. Disturbances and stability are multidimensional. Our understanding of them is not. We have a remarkably poor understanding of the impacts on stability of the characteristics that define many, perhaps all, of the most important elements of global change. We provide recommendations for theoreticians, empiricists and policymakers on how to better integrate the multidimensional nature of ecological stability into their research, policies and actions., (© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd/CNRS.)

The IUCN Red List has assessed the global distributions of the majority of the world's amphibians, birds and mammals. Yet these assessments lack explicit reference to widely available, remotely-sensed data that can sensibly inform a species' risk of extinction. Our first goal is to add additional quantitative data to the existing standardised process that IUCN employs. Secondly, we ask: do our results suggest species of concern-those at considerably greater risk than hitherto appreciated? Thirdly, these assessments are not only important on a species-by-species basis. By combining distributions of species of concern, we map conservation priorities. We ask to what degree these areas are currently protected and how might knowledge from remote sensing modify the priorities? Finally, we develop a quick and simple method to identify and modify the priority setting in a landscape where natural habitats are disappearing rapidly and so where conventional species' assessments might be too slow to respond. Tropical, mainland Southeast Asia is under exceptional threat, yet relatively poorly known. Here, additional quantitative measures may be particularly helpful. This region contains over 122, 183, and 214 endemic mammals, birds, and amphibians, respectively, of which the IUCN considers 37, 21, and 37 threatened. When corrected for the amount of remaining natural habitats within the known elevation preferences of species, the average sizes of species ranges shrink to <40% of their published ranges. Some 79 mammal, 49 bird, and 184 amphibian ranges are <20,000km2-an area at which IUCN considers most other species to be threatened. Moreover, these species are not better protected by the existing network of protected areas than are species that IUCN accepts as threatened. Simply, there appear to be considerably more species at risk than hitherto appreciated. Furthermore, incorporating remote sensing data showing where habitat loss is prevalent changes the locations of conservation priorities.

Palm oil is the most widely traded vegetable oil globally, with demand projected to increase substantially in the future. Almost all oil palm grows in areas that were once tropical moist forests, some of them quite recently. The conversion to date, and future expansion, threatens biodiversity and increases greenhouse gas emissions. Today, consumer pressure is pushing companies toward deforestation-free sources of palm oil. To guide interventions aimed at reducing tropical deforestation due to oil palm, we analysed recent expansions and modelled likely future ones. We assessed sample areas to find where oil palm plantations have recently replaced forests in 20 countries, using a combination of high-resolution imagery from Google Earth and Landsat. We then compared these trends to countrywide trends in FAO data for oil palm planted area. Finally, we assessed which forests have high agricultural suitability for future oil palm development, which we refer to as vulnerable forests, and identified critical areas for biodiversity that oil palm expansion threatens. Our analysis reveals regional trends in deforestation associated with oil palm agriculture. In Southeast Asia, 45% of sampled oil palm plantations came from areas that were forests in 1989. For South America, the percentage was 31%. By contrast, in Mesoamerica and Africa, we observed only 2% and 7% of oil palm plantations coming from areas that were forest in 1989. The largest areas of vulnerable forest are in Africa and South America. Vulnerable forests in all four regions of production contain globally high concentrations of mammal and bird species at risk of extinction. However, priority areas for biodiversity conservation differ based on taxa and criteria used. Government regulation and voluntary market interventions can help incentivize the expansion of oil palm plantations in ways that protect biodiversity-rich ecosystems.

The giant panda attracts disproportionate conservation resources. How well does this emphasis protect other endemic species? Detailed data on geographical ranges are not available for plants or invertebrates, so we restrict our analyses to 3 vertebrate taxa: birds, mammals, and amphibians. There are gaps in their protection, and we recommend practical actions to fill them. We identified patterns of species richness, then identified which species are endemic to China, and then which, like the panda, live in forests. After refining each species' range by its known elevational range and remaining forest habitats as determined from remote sensing, we identified the top 5% richest areas as the centers of endemism. Southern mountains, especially the eastern Hengduan Mountains, were centers for all 3 taxa. Over 96% of the panda habitat overlapped the endemic centers. Thus, investing in almost any panda habitat will benefit many other endemics. Existing panda national nature reserves cover all but one of the endemic species that overlap with the panda's distribution. Of particular interest are 14 mammal, 20 bird, and 82 amphibian species that are inadequately protected. Most of these species the International Union for Conservation of Nature currently deems threatened. But 7 mammal, 3 bird, and 20 amphibian species are currently nonthreatened, yet their geographical ranges are <20,000 km(2) after accounting for elevational restriction and remaining habitats. These species concentrate mainly in Sichuan, Yunnan, Nan Mountains, and Hainan. There is a high concentration in the east Daxiang and Xiaoxiang Mountains of Sichuan, where pandas are absent and where there are no national nature reserves. The others concentrate in Yunnan, Nan Mountains, and Hainan. Here, 10 prefectures might establish new protected areas or upgrade local nature reserves to national status., (© 2015 Society for Conservation Biology.)

Deforestation causes habitat loss, fragmentation, degradation, and can ultimately cause extinction of the remnant species. Tropical montane birds face these threats with the added natural vulnerability of narrower elevational ranges and higher specialization than lowland species. Recent studies assess the impact of present and future global climate change on species' ranges, but only a few of these evaluate the potentially confounding effect of lowland deforestation on species elevational distributions. In the Western Andes of Colombia, an important biodiversity hotspot, we evaluated the effects of deforestation on the elevational ranges of montane birds along altitudinal transects. Using point counts and mist-nets, we surveyed six altitudinal transects spanning 2200 to 2800 m. Three transects were forested from 2200 to 2800 m, and three were partially deforested with forest cover only above 2400 m. We compared abundance-weighted mean elevation, minimum elevation, and elevational range width. In addition to analysing the effect of deforestation on 134 species, we tested its impact within trophic guilds and habitat preference groups. Abundance-weighted mean and minimum elevations were not significantly different between forested and partially deforested transects. Range width was marginally different: as expected, ranges were larger in forested transects. Species in different trophic guilds and habitat preference categories showed different trends. These results suggest that deforestation may affect species' elevational ranges, even within the forest that remains. Climate change will likely exacerbate harmful impacts of deforestation on species' elevational distributions. Future conservation strategies need to account for this by protecting connected forest tracts across a wide range of elevations.

Technologies to identify individual animals, follow their movements, identify and locate animal and plant species, and assess the status of their habitats remotely have become better, faster, and cheaper as threats to the survival of species are increasing. New technologies alone do not save species, and new data create new problems. For example, improving technologies alone cannot prevent poaching: solutions require providing appropriate tools to the right people. Habitat loss is another driver: the challenge here is to connect existing sophisticated remote sensing with species occurrence data to predict where species remain. Other challenges include assembling a wider public to crowdsource data, managing the massive quantities of data generated, and developing solutions to rapidly emerging threats., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Because habitat loss is the main cause of extinction, where and how much society chooses to protect is vital for saving species. The United States is well positioned economically and politically to pursue habitat conservation should it be a societal goal. We assessed the US protected area portfolio with respect to biodiversity in the country. New synthesis maps for terrestrial vertebrates, freshwater fish, and trees permit comparison with protected areas to identify priorities for future conservation investment. Although the total area protected is substantial, its geographic configuration is nearly the opposite of patterns of endemism within the country. Most protected lands are in the West, whereas the vulnerable species are largely in the Southeast. Private land protections are significant, but they are not concentrated where the priorities are. To adequately protect the nation's unique biodiversity, we recommend specific areas deserving additional protection, some of them including public lands, but many others requiring private investment.

A key measure of humanity's global impact is by how much it has increased species extinction rates. Familiar statements are that these are 100-1000 times pre-human or background extinction levels. Estimating recent rates is straightforward, but establishing a background rate for comparison is not. Previous researchers chose an approximate benchmark of 1 extinction per million species per year (E/MSY). We explored disparate lines of evidence that suggest a substantially lower estimate. Fossil data yield direct estimates of extinction rates, but they are temporally coarse, mostly limited to marine hard-bodied taxa, and generally involve genera not species. Based on these data, typical background loss is 0.01 genera per million genera per year. Molecular phylogenies are available for more taxa and ecosystems, but it is debated whether they can be used to estimate separately speciation and extinction rates. We selected data to address known concerns and used them to determine median extinction estimates from statistical distributions of probable values for terrestrial plants and animals. We then created simulations to explore effects of violating model assumptions. Finally, we compiled estimates of diversification-the difference between speciation and extinction rates for different taxa. Median estimates of extinction rates ranged from 0.023 to 0.135 E/MSY. Simulation results suggested over- and under-estimation of extinction from individual phylogenies partially canceled each other out when large sets of phylogenies were analyzed. There was no evidence for recent and widespread pre-human overall declines in diversity. This implies that average extinction rates are less than average diversification rates. Median diversification rates were 0.05-0.2 new species per million species per year. On the basis of these results, we concluded that typical rates of background extinction may be closer to 0.1 E/MSY. Thus, current extinction rates are 1,000 times higher than natural background rates of extinction and future rates are likely to be 10,000 times higher., (© 2014 Society for Conservation Biology.)