Browsing by Author "Ocampo-Peñuela, Natalia"

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    Batch-produced, GIS-informed range maps for birds based on provenanced, crowd-sourced data inform conservation assessments.
    (PloS one, 2021-01) Huang, Ryan M; Medina, Wilderson; Brooks, Thomas M; Butchart, Stuart HM; Fitzpatrick, John W; Hermes, Claudia; Jenkins, Clinton N; Johnston, Alison; Lebbin, Daniel J; Li, Binbin V; Ocampo-Peñuela, Natalia; Parr, Mike; Wheatley, Hannah; Wiedenfeld, David A; Wood, Christopher; Pimm, Stuart L
    Accurate maps of species ranges are essential to inform conservation, but time-consuming to produce and update. Given the pace of change of knowledge about species distributions and shifts in ranges under climate change and land use, a need exists for timely mapping approaches that enable batch processing employing widely available data. We develop a systematic approach of batch-processing range maps and derived Area of Habitat maps for terrestrial bird species with published ranges below 125,000 km2 in Central and South America. (Area of Habitat is the habitat available to a species within its range.) We combine existing range maps with the rapidly expanding crowd-sourced eBird data of presences and absences from frequently surveyed locations, plus readily accessible, high resolution satellite data on forest cover and elevation to map the Area of Habitat available to each species. Users can interrogate the maps produced to see details of the observations that contributed to the ranges. Previous estimates of Areas of Habitat were constrained within the published ranges and thus were, by definition, smaller-typically about 30%. This reflects how little habitat within suitable elevation ranges exists within the published ranges. Our results show that on average, Areas of Habitat are 12% larger than published ranges, reflecting the often-considerable extent that eBird records expand the known distributions of species. Interestingly, there are substantial differences between threatened and non-threatened species. Some 40% of Critically Endangered, 43% of Endangered, and 55% of Vulnerable species have Areas of Habitat larger than their published ranges, compared with 31% for Near Threatened and Least Concern species. The important finding for conservation is that threatened species are generally more widespread than previously estimated.
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    Bird conservation would complement landslide prevention in the Central Andes of Colombia.
    (PeerJ, 2015-01) Ocampo-Peñuela, Natalia; Pimm, Stuart L
    Conservation and restoration priorities often focus on separate ecosystem problems. Inspired by the November 11th (2011) landslide event near Manizales, and the current poor results of Colombia's Article 111 of Law 99 of 1993 as a conservation measure in this country, we set out to prioritize conservation and restoration areas where landslide prevention would complement bird conservation in the Central Andes. This area is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, but also one of the most threatened. Using the case of the Rio Blanco Reserve, near Manizales, we identified areas for conservation where endemic and small-range bird diversity was high, and where landslide risk was also high. We further prioritized restoration areas by overlapping these conservation priorities with a forest cover map. Restoring forests in bare areas of high landslide risk and important bird diversity yields benefits for both biodiversity and people. We developed a simple landslide susceptibility model using slope, forest cover, aspect, and stream proximity. Using publicly available bird range maps, refined by elevation, we mapped concentrations of endemic and small-range bird species. We identified 1.54 km(2) of potential restoration areas in the Rio Blanco Reserve, and 886 km(2) in the Central Andes region. By prioritizing these areas, we facilitate the application of Article 111 which requires local and regional governments to invest in land purchases for the conservation of watersheds.
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    Elevational Ranges of Montane Birds and Deforestation in the Western Andes of Colombia.
    (PloS one, 2015-01) Ocampo-Peñuela, Natalia; Pimm, Stuart L
    Deforestation causes habitat loss, fragmentation, degradation, and can ultimately cause extinction of the remnant species. Tropical montane birds face these threats with the added natural vulnerability of narrower elevational ranges and higher specialization than lowland species. Recent studies assess the impact of present and future global climate change on species' ranges, but only a few of these evaluate the potentially confounding effect of lowland deforestation on species elevational distributions. In the Western Andes of Colombia, an important biodiversity hotspot, we evaluated the effects of deforestation on the elevational ranges of montane birds along altitudinal transects. Using point counts and mist-nets, we surveyed six altitudinal transects spanning 2200 to 2800 m. Three transects were forested from 2200 to 2800 m, and three were partially deforested with forest cover only above 2400 m. We compared abundance-weighted mean elevation, minimum elevation, and elevational range width. In addition to analysing the effect of deforestation on 134 species, we tested its impact within trophic guilds and habitat preference groups. Abundance-weighted mean and minimum elevations were not significantly different between forested and partially deforested transects. Range width was marginally different: as expected, ranges were larger in forested transects. Species in different trophic guilds and habitat preference categories showed different trends. These results suggest that deforestation may affect species' elevational ranges, even within the forest that remains. Climate change will likely exacerbate harmful impacts of deforestation on species' elevational distributions. Future conservation strategies need to account for this by protecting connected forest tracts across a wide range of elevations.
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    Incorporating explicit geospatial data shows more species at risk of extinction than the current Red List.
    (Science advances, 2016-11-09) Ocampo-Peñuela, Natalia; Jenkins, Clinton N; Vijay, Varsha; Li, Binbin V; Pimm, Stuart L
    The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List classifies species according to their risk of extinction, informing global to local conservation decisions. Unfortunately, important geospatial data do not explicitly or efficiently enter this process. Rapid growth in the availability of remotely sensed observations provides fine-scale data on elevation and increasingly sophisticated characterizations of land cover and its changes. These data readily show that species are likely not present within many areas within the overall envelopes of their distributions. Additionally, global databases on protected areas inform how extensively ranges are protected. We selected 586 endemic and threatened forest bird species from six of the world's most biodiverse and threatened places (Atlantic Forest of Brazil, Central America, Western Andes of Colombia, Madagascar, Sumatra, and Southeast Asia). The Red List deems 18% of these species to be threatened (15 critically endangered, 29 endangered, and 64 vulnerable). Inevitably, after refining ranges by elevation and forest cover, ranges shrink. Do they do so consistently? For example, refined ranges of critically endangered species might reduce by (say) 50% but so might the ranges of endangered, vulnerable, and nonthreatened species. Critically, this is not the case. We find that 43% of species fall below the range threshold where comparable species are deemed threatened. Some 210 bird species belong in a higher-threat category than the current Red List placement, including 189 species that are currently deemed nonthreatened. Incorporating readily available spatial data substantially increases the numbers of species that should be considered at risk and alters priority areas for conservation.
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    Measuring Terrestrial Area of Habitat (AOH) and Its Utility for the IUCN Red List.
    (Trends in ecology & evolution, 2019-11) Brooks, Thomas M; Pimm, Stuart L; Akçakaya, H Resit; Buchanan, Graeme M; Butchart, Stuart HM; Foden, Wendy; Hilton-Taylor, Craig; Hoffmann, Michael; Jenkins, Clinton N; Joppa, Lucas; Li, Binbin V; Menon, Vivek; Ocampo-Peñuela, Natalia; Rondinini, Carlo
    The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species includes assessment of extinction risk for 98 512 species, plus documentation of their range, habitat, elevation, and other factors. These range, habitat and elevation data can be matched with terrestrial land cover and elevation datasets to map the species' area of habitat (AOH; also known as extent of suitable habitat; ESH). This differs from the two spatial metrics used for assessing extinction risk in the IUCN Red List criteria: extent of occurrence (EOO) and area of occupancy (AOO). AOH can guide conservation, for example, through targeting areas for field surveys, assessing proportions of species' habitat within protected areas, and monitoring habitat loss and fragmentation. We recommend that IUCN Red List assessments document AOH wherever practical.
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    Remotely Sensed Data Informs Red List Evaluations and Conservation Priorities in Southeast Asia.
    (PloS one, 2016-01) Li, Binbin V; Hughes, Alice C; Jenkins, Clinton N; Ocampo-Peñuela, Natalia; Pimm, Stuart L
    The IUCN Red List has assessed the global distributions of the majority of the world's amphibians, birds and mammals. Yet these assessments lack explicit reference to widely available, remotely-sensed data that can sensibly inform a species' risk of extinction. Our first goal is to add additional quantitative data to the existing standardised process that IUCN employs. Secondly, we ask: do our results suggest species of concern-those at considerably greater risk than hitherto appreciated? Thirdly, these assessments are not only important on a species-by-species basis. By combining distributions of species of concern, we map conservation priorities. We ask to what degree these areas are currently protected and how might knowledge from remote sensing modify the priorities? Finally, we develop a quick and simple method to identify and modify the priority setting in a landscape where natural habitats are disappearing rapidly and so where conventional species' assessments might be too slow to respond. Tropical, mainland Southeast Asia is under exceptional threat, yet relatively poorly known. Here, additional quantitative measures may be particularly helpful. This region contains over 122, 183, and 214 endemic mammals, birds, and amphibians, respectively, of which the IUCN considers 37, 21, and 37 threatened. When corrected for the amount of remaining natural habitats within the known elevation preferences of species, the average sizes of species ranges shrink to <40% of their published ranges. Some 79 mammal, 49 bird, and 184 amphibian ranges are <20,000km2-an area at which IUCN considers most other species to be threatened. Moreover, these species are not better protected by the existing network of protected areas than are species that IUCN accepts as threatened. Simply, there appear to be considerably more species at risk than hitherto appreciated. Furthermore, incorporating remote sensing data showing where habitat loss is prevalent changes the locations of conservation priorities.
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    Setting practical conservation priorities for birds in the Western Andes of Colombia.
    (Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology, 2014-10) Ocampo-Peñuela, Natalia; Pimm, Stuart L
    We aspired to set conservation priorities in ways that lead to direct conservation actions. Very large-scale strategic mapping leads to familiar conservation priorities exemplified by biodiversity hotspots. In contrast, tactical conservation actions unfold on much smaller geographical extents and they need to reflect the habitat loss and fragmentation that have sharply restricted where species now live. Our aspirations for direct, practical actions were demanding. First, we identified the global, strategic conservation priorities and then downscaled to practical local actions within the selected priorities. In doing this, we recognized the limitations of incomplete information. We started such a process in Colombia and used the results presented here to implement reforestation of degraded land to prevent the isolation of a large area of cloud forest. We used existing range maps of 171 bird species to identify priority conservation areas that would conserve the greatest number of species at risk in Colombia. By at risk species, we mean those that are endemic and have small ranges. The Western Andes had the highest concentrations of such species-100 in total-but the lowest densities of national parks. We then adjusted the priorities for this region by refining these species ranges by selecting only areas of suitable elevation and remaining habitat. The estimated ranges of these species shrank by 18-100% after accounting for habitat and suitable elevation. Setting conservation priorities on the basis of currently available range maps excluded priority areas in the Western Andes and, by extension, likely elsewhere and for other taxa. By incorporating detailed maps of remaining natural habitats, we made practical recommendations for conservation actions. One recommendation was to restore forest connections to a patch of cloud forest about to become isolated from the main Andes.
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    Unfulfilled promise of data-driven approaches: response to Peterson et al.
    (Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology, 2017-08) Pimm, Stuart L; Harris, Grant; Jenkins, Clinton N; Ocampo-Peñuela, Natalia; Li, Binbin V