Planning for robust reserve networks using uncertainty analysis

Abstract

Planning land-use for biodiversity conservation frequently involves computer-assisted reserve selection algorithms. Typically such algorithms operate on matrices of species presence-absence in sites, or on species-specific distributions of model predicted probabilities of occurrence in grid cells. There are practically always errors in input data-erroneous species presence-absence data, structural and parametric uncertainty in predictive habitat models, and lack of correspondence between temporal presence and long-run persistence. Despite these uncertainties, typical reserve selection methods proceed as if there is no uncertainty in the data or models. Having two conservation options of appa..