Designating protected areas for biodiversity conservation often involves considering where ecologically important areas occur. For conservation initiatives such as 30×30, understanding how human disturbance is impacting connectivity in ecologically important areas could guide choices for how to protect habitat.
Key Biodiversity Areas are significant areas for biodiversity conservation, and are identified by the IUCN using criteria such as containing threatened species and ecosystems or irreplaceable ecosystems.
Yang, R., Dong, X., Xu, S., Wang, K., Li, X., Xiao, W., Ye, Y. 2024. Fragmentation of Key Biodiversity Areas highlights attention to human disturbance patterns. Biological Conservation 290: 110428.
While we know these areas are significant for conservation, we know less about the patterns of human disturbance in Key Biodiversity Areas. Because different spatial patterns of disturbance can have varying impacts on ecosystems, quantifying these patterns will inform habitat conservation decisions.
Recent research looked at global human disturbance patterns in terrestrial Key Biodiversity Areas. Researchers used land cover data to identify and compare agriculture and development to the location of over 10,000 Key Biodiversity Areas. For each Key Biodiversity Area affected by agriculture or development, they identified the dominant spatial pattern of that disturbance, such as shrinking habitat sizes or fragmented habitat.
The study found that 89% of Key Biodiversity Areas are experiencing a high level of human disturbance. Of these, 57% are primarily affected by habitat fragmentation or a combination of habitat loss and fragmentation. This high frequency of fragmentation means that habitat in Key Biodiversity Areas is lacking connectivity, and protection of these areas may need to implement connectivity-restoring measures such as corridors.
Patterns of fragmentation in Key Biodiversity Areas also led to smaller habitat patches and triple the amount of edge habitat. Increased edge habitat not only alters ecological processes, but also increases human contact with habitat, exposing more species to human activity and increasing the chance of future human disturbance.
Importantly, analyses showed that even when habitat in Key Biodiversity Areas was considered protected, these areas still experienced a high level of human disturbance. This finding indicates that current levels of protection may be insufficient to protect biodiversity from human impact and emphasizes the need for more robust protection of these areas.
In the context of global initiatives to designate protected areas, this research points to a need to consider the spatial patterns of human disturbance. If habitat in Key Biodiversity Areas continues to be fragmented, these areas may not be able to maintain viable populations of their threatened species. Understanding how human disturbance impacts Key Biodiversity Areas provides insight for the interventions that management should prioritize for these ecologically important areas.
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