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Dryad

Restoration priorities for Caatinga dry forests: landscape resilience, connectivity and biodiversity value

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Feb 11, 2022 version files 47.50 MB

Abstract

1. Restoration actions can halt biodiversity loss and rescue its services. However, in order to be effective, priority areas for restoration should be chosen based on objective large-scale restoration planning. Here, a multi-criteria graph theory (GT) framework is proposed to indicate priority areas for active restoration, based on landscape resilience, landscape connectivity, and biodiversity conservation value, focusing on threatened endemic plant species.

2. We applied this GT framework to 10,406 catchment basins of the Brazilian Caatinga, the largest seasonally dry tropical forest of the New World. Vegetation cover and within-catchment connectivity were used to identify catchments of intermediate landscape resilience, which in principle offer more effective opportunities for restoration. Then, such catchments were independently classified into (i) three classes according their value for between-catchment connectivity and (ii) three classes of biodiversity conservation value, based on richness of threatened, endemic plant species. By the integration of landscape resilience, landscape connectivity and biodiversity conservation values, three priority classes for restoration were generated.

3. The multi-criteria framework generated several restoration priority cut-offs. Prioritization based on landscape resilience selected 36% of the Caatinga catchments as high priority for restoration. By independently adding landscape connectivity and biodiversity conservation value, only 12% and 3% of the catchments, respectively, were considered high priority. By combining all three criteria, 9% of the catchments were selected as high priority and less than 1% as top priority for restoration.

4. Synthesis and applications: The multicriteria GT framework for restoration prioritization, which maximizes the effectiveness of restoration actions, landscape connectivity for climate change adaptation and conservation of threatened species, can be applied worldwide under different budged limitations and spatial scales, being useful for private, state, and federal initiatives.