Digital Commons Network^™

Planning For Robust Reserve Networks Using Uncertainty Analysis, Atte Moilanen, Michael C. Runge, Jane Elith, Andrew Tyre, Yohay Carmel, Eric Fegraus, Brendan A. Wintle, Mark Burgman, Yakov Ben-Haim

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

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 ofmodel 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 apparently equal biological value, one would prefer the option whose value is relatively …