Scaling up ocean conservation through recognition of key biodiversity areas in the Southern Ocean from multispecies tracking data

• Published in: Conservation Biology
• Main Authors: Becker, Sarah, L, Boyd, Charlotte, Handley, Jonathan, M, Raymond, Ben, Reisinger, Ryan, Ropert-Coudert, Yan, Apelgren, Nora, Davies, Tammy, E, Lea, Mary‐anne, Santos, Mercedes, Trathan, Philip, N, van de Putte, Anton, P, Huckstadt, Luis, A, Charrassin, Jean-Benoit, Brooks, Cassandra, M
• Other Authors: University of Colorado Boulder, Institute of Arctic Alpine Research University of Colorado Boulder (INSTAAR), BirdLife International, Australian Antarctic Division (AAD), Australian Government, Department of the Environment and Energy, School of Ocean and Earth Science UK, University of Southampton, Centre d'Études Biologiques de Chizé - UMR 7372 (CEBC), La Rochelle Université (ULR)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE), Columbia University New York, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies and Centre for Marine Socioecology, University of Tasmania Hobart, Australia (UTAS), Instituto Antartico Argentino, British Antartic Survey, Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique = Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (IRSNB / RBINS), Marine Biology Lab, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), University of Exeter, Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-École polytechnique (X), Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris Cité (UPCité)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-École polytechnique (X), Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris Cité (UPCité), Blue Nature Alliance
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2024
• Subjects: key biodiversity areas; marine predators; site-based conservation; Southern Ocean; tracking data; [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; [SDU.STU.OC]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Oceanography; Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04691785; https://hal.science/hal-04691785/document; https://hal.science/hal-04691785/file/LBS_2024_1.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.14345

International audience Biodiversity is critical for maintaining ecosystem function but is threatened by increasing anthropogenic pressures. In the Southern Ocean, a highly biologically productive region containing many endemic species, proactive management is urgently needed to mitigate increasing pressures from fishing, climate change, and tourism. Site‐based conservation is one important tool for managing the negative impacts of human activities on ecosystems. The Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) Standard is a standardized framework used to define sites vital for the persistence of global biodiversity based on criteria and quantitative thresholds. We used tracking data from 14 species of Antarctic and subantarctic seabirds and pinnipeds from the publicly available Retrospective Analysis of Antarctic Tracking Data (RAATD) data set to define KBAs for a diverse suite of marine predators. We used track2kba, an R package that supports identification of KBAs from telemetry data through identification of highly used habitat areas and estimates of local abundance within sites. We compared abundance estimates at each site with thresholds for KBA criteria A1, B1, and D1 (related to globally threatened species, individual geographically restricted species, and demographic aggregations, respectively). We identified 30 potential KBAs for 13 species distributed throughout the Southern Ocean that were vital for each individual species, population, and life‐history stage for which they were determined. These areas were identified as highly used by these populations based on observational data and complement the ongoing habitat modeling and bioregionalization work that has been used to prioritize conservation areas in this region. Although further work is needed to identify potential KBAs based on additional current and future data sets, we highlight the benefits of utilizing KBAs as part of a holistic approach to marine conservation, given their significant value as a global conservation tool. Ampliación de la conservación ...