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Making conservation decisions under uncertainty for the persistence of multiple species

journal contribution
posted on 2007-01-01, 00:00 authored by Emily Nicholson, H P Possingham
Population models for multiple species provide one of the few means of assessing the impact of alternative management options on the persistence of biodiversity, but
they are inevitably uncertain. Is it possible to use population models in multiple-speciesconservation planning given the associated uncertainties? We use information-gap decision theory to explore the impact of parameter uncertainty on the conservation decision when planning for the persistence of multiple species. An information-gap approach seeks robust outcomes that are most immune from error. We assess the impact of uncertainty in key model parameters for three species, whose extinction risks under four alternative management scenarios are estimated using a metapopulation model. Three methods are described for making conservation decisions across the species, taking into account uncertainty. We find that decisions based on single species are relatively robust to uncertainty in parameters, although the estimates of extinction risk increase rapidly with uncertainty. When identifying the best conservation decision for the persistence of all species, the methods that rely on the rankings of the management options by each species result in decisions that are similarly robust to uncertainty. Methods that depend on absolute values of extinction risk are sensitive to uncertainty, as small changes in extinction risk can alter the ranking of the alternative scenarios. We discover that it is possible to make robust conservation decisions even when the uncertainties of the multiple-species problem appear overwhelming. However, the decision most robust to uncertainty is likely to differ from the best decision when uncertainty is ignored, illustrating the importance of incorporating uncertainty into the decision-making process.

History

Journal

Ecological applications

Volume

17

Issue

1

Pagination

251 - 265

Publisher

Ecological Society of America

Location

Philadelphia, P.A.

ISSN

1051-0761

Language

eng

Publication classification

C Journal article; C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2007, Ecological Society of America