Representation of biodiversity and ecosystem services in East Africa's protected area network.

ABSTRACT: The dramatic increase in anthropogenic activity severely threatens the biodiversity and life-support services that underpin human well-being. The broadened focus of protecting ecosystem services (ESs) better aligns the interests of people and biodiversity conservation. In this study, we used species richness as a surrogate for biodiversity and mapped the key ESs in East Africa with the goal to assess the spatial congruence between biodiversity and ESs, and evaluate the representation of current protected areas (PAs) network for biodiversity and ESs. The results showed that PAs well represented for species richness and regulating services but underrepresented for provisioning services. The PAs network occupies 10.96% of East Africa's land surface, and captures 20.62-26.37% of conservation p

SUBMITTER: Wei F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6888792 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature