Suchergebnisse

Cities are investing billions of dollars in climate change adaptation to combat the effects of sea‐level rise, temperature extremes, increasingly intense storm events, flooding and water scarcity. Natural ecosystems have enormous potential to contribute to city resilience, and so, actions that rely on this approach could sustain considerable co‐benefits for biodiversity. In this paper we identify the prevalence of key themes of human adaptation response that could have biodiversity conservation outcomes in cities. We then quantify the area of impact for actions that identify specific targets for greening or green infrastructure that could involve natural ecosystems, providing an indicator of potential co‐benefits to biodiversity. We then extrapolate to explore the total area of land that could benefit from catchment management approaches, the area of waterways that could benefit from nature‐based improvement of these spaces, and finally the number of threatened species that could benefit across these cities. From 80 city climate adaptation plans analysed, we found that urban greening plays a key role in most adaptation strategies, and represents an enormous opportunity for biodiversity conservation, given the diversity of animal and plant species in urban environments. We show that the ranges of at least 270 threatened species overlap with the area covered by just 58 city adaptation plans, including watershed catchments totalling over 28 million km2. However, an analysis of 80 city adaptation plans (of a total 151 found globally) shows that this opportunity is being missed. Just 18% of the plans assessed contained specific intentions to promote biodiversity. We highlight this missed opportunity, as climate adaptation actions undertaken by cities represent an enormous incipient opportunity for nature conservation. Finally, we encourage planners and city governments to incorporate biological conservation into climate adaption plans, for the mutual benefit of urban societies and their biodiversity.

Species distribution models (SDMs) are increasingly proposed to support conservation decision making. However, evidence of SDMs supporting solutions for on‐ground conservation problems is still scarce in the scientific literature. Here, we show that successful examples exist but are still largely hidden in the grey literature, and thus less accessible for analysis and learning. Furthermore, the decision framework within which SDMs are used is rarely made explicit. Using case studies from biological invasions, identification of critical habitats, reserve selection and translocation of endangered species, we propose that SDMs may be tailored to suit a range of decision‐making contexts when used within a structured and transparent decision‐making process. To construct appropriate SDMs to more effectively guide conservation actions, modellers need to better understand the decision process, and decision makers need to provide feedback to modellers regarding the actual use of SDMs to support conservation decisions. This could be facilitated by individuals or institutions playing the role of 'translators' between modellers and decision makers. We encourage species distribution modellers to get involved in real decision‐making processes that will benefit from their technical input; this strategy has the potential to better bridge theory and practice, and contribute to improve both scientific knowledge and conservation outcomes. ; AG's stay in Brisbane, Australia, was supported by the CSIRO McMaster Foundation. The three workshops (held on December 2011, April and May 2012) that led to this publication were organised with financial support and within the framework of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED; http://www.ceed.edu.au) led by HPP. AG benefitted from insights from a project on applying SDMs to invasive management in Switzerland granted by the Swiss Federal Office of the Environment (FOEN) and the National Centre for Competence in Research (NCCR) 'Plant Survival' in Neuchâtel. LB benefitted from support from the Catalan Government (CARTOBIO and 2010‐BE‐272 projects) and the EU‐FP7 SCALES (#226852) to attend the workshops.