Evaluating trade-offs between species targets and average coverage in spatial conservation planning

Cavalcante, T., Kujala, H., Virtanen, E.A., O'Connor, L., Lehtinen, P., & Moilanen, A. (2025). Evaluating trade-offs between species targets and average coverage in spatial conservation planning. Biological Conservation 310 e111368. 10.1016/j.biocon.2025.111368.

Preview

Text 1-s2.0-S0006320725004057-main.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (6MB) | Preview

Abstract

With global conservation coverage rising toward 30 % and beyond, designing reserve networks that maximize biodiversity benefits while balancing competing objectives remains a pressing challenge. Spatial conservation prioritization methods are essential tools in this effort, yet different approaches can lead to markedly different outcomes. Among these, target-based minimum set coverage planning (MSC) and balanced priority ranking (BPR) represent two fundamentally distinct strategies: MSC focuses on meeting explicit conservation targets, while BPR seeks to achieve a cost-effective solution that maximizes coverage for all features. Despite their widespread use, little is known about how these methods compare in efficiency or differ when applied to the same datasets with varying target strategies. Here, we systematically compared conservation coverage achieved by the two methodologies with equal area allocation using five open datasets and four target-setting scenarios. We found that BPR resulted consistently in higher mean feature coverage per area protected compared to MSC across all datasets. BPR average coverage was nearly twice as high when considering all datasets together, although coverage was heterogeneous and showed no clear minimum threshold. In contrast, MSC guaranteed that specified target levels were met with certainty, but this came at the cost of reduced mean coverage. The magnitude of these differences highlights a major trade-off between targets and mean coverage, emphasizing the importance of disclosing conservation performance rather than solely reporting the proportions of features meeting targets or similar metrics. This can lead to more informed decision-making and improved performance assessments, with significant policy relevance for global conservation planning.

Actions (login required)

View Item