Segan, D.B., Murray, K. and J.E.M. Watson (2016). A global assessment of current and future biodiversity vulnerability to habitat loss-climate change interactions. Global Ecology and Conservation, 5: 12 – 21. Habitat loss is the greatest threat to biodiversity and rapid, human-forced climate change is likely to exacerbate this. Here we present the first global assessment of current and potential future impacts on biodiversity of a habitat loss and fragmentation–climate change (HLF–CC) interaction. A recent meta-analysis demonstrated that the negative impacts of habitat loss and fragmentation have been disproportionately severe in areas with high temperatures in the warmest month and declinin
Klein, C.J., C.J. Brown, B. S. Halpern, D. B. Segan, J. McGowan, M. Beger and J.E.M. Watson (2015). Shortfalls in the global protected area network at representing marine biodiversity. Scientific Reports, 5, 17539; doi: 10.1038/srep17539 In this paper we overlap global marine protected areas (MPA) with the ranges of 17,348 marine species (fishes, mammals, invertebrates). We found that nearly all species have <10% of their ranges represented in stricter conservation classes. Almost all of the very poorly represented species (<2% coverage) are found within exclusive economic zones, suggesting an important role for particular nations to better protect biodiversity. Further, we identified 245 ‘g
Designing Climate-Resilient Marine Protected Area Networks by Combining Remotely Sensed Coral Reef H
Maina, J., Jones, K., Hicks, C. McClanahan, T. Watson, J.E.M., Tuda, A.O. and S. Andréfouët (2015). Designing Climate-Resilient Marine Protected Area Networks by Combining Remotely Sensed Coral Reef Habitat with Coastal Multi-Use Maps. Remote Sensing, 7: 16571 – 16587. Decision making for the conservation and management of coral reef biodiversity requires an understanding of spatial variability and distribution of reef habitat types. Despite the existence of very high-resolution remote sensing technology for nearly two decades, comprehensive assessment of coral reef habitats at national to regional spatial scales and at very high spatial resolution is still scarce. Here, we develop benthic h
Welling, L., Rockman, M., Watson, J.E.M., Mackey, B. and A. Potts (2015). The role of World Heritage sites in a changing climate. World Heritage, 77: 4 - 13. The issue focuses on climate change and the lead article is about the role of natural and cultural World Heritage sites in a changing climate. Leigh Welling and Marcy Rockman were the lead co-authors on this, joined by scientists who worked with us on the World Parks Congress last year and Andrew Potts of US/ICOMOS. Read it online here.