Speaker
Description
Protected areas are the most important tool for combating the global biodiversity crisis, yet their effectiveness especially for vascular plants remains poorly quantified with most studies relying on qualitative rather than time-series approaches. Germany maintains one of the EU’s most extensive protected area networks, but a notable proportion predates systematic conservation planning and awareness of global change, raising the question whether fixed protected area boundaries adequately respond to dynamic environmental change. Unlike mobile taxa, endangered plants experience range loss primarily through local extinction rather than colonization, making time-series data particularly informative for assessing whether protected areas effectively retain threatened species.
Here, we leverage two complementary open-access datasets to investigate PA effectiveness for nationally threatened plant species at different spatial scales. At the national scale, we assess how protected area coverage relates to species range persistence for 861 red-listed species over nearly 60 years, differentiating between PA categories. We complement this with a plot-level resurvey dataset examining colonization rates, extinction rates, and mean annual cover changes of red-listed species inside versus outside protected areas.
Our results reveal differential effectiveness across PA categories. At the national scale, strict protection (IUCN I-III and biosphere reserve cores) and Natura 2000 sites were associated with greater range persistence, while IUCN IV and V showed no significant effects. At the plot level, strict protected areas showed significantly higher colonization rates, whereas IUCN IV and Natura 2000 sites exhibited elevated extinction rates. Mean annual cover changes did not differ significantly between protected and unprotected sites. These findings demonstrate that PA category strongly influences conservation outcomes, with strict protection providing clear benefits for species persistence, while other designations may require complementary management strategies to maximize effectiveness
| Status Group | Doctoral Researcher |
|---|---|
| FOR TALKS: Poster Presentation Option | Undecided/No preference |