۱- Introduction

۲- Methods

۳- Results

۴- Discussion

۵- Conclusions

References

Abstract

The Natura 2000 protected area network is the cornerstone of European Union’s biodiversity conservation strategy. These protected areas range across multiple biogeographic regions, and they include a diversity of species assemblages along with a diversity of managing organizations, altogether making difficult to pool relevant sites to facilitate the flow of knowledge significant to their management. Here we introduce an approach to navigating protected area networks that has the potential to foster systematic identification of key sites for facilitating the exchange of knowledge and diffusion of information within the network. To demonstrate our approach, we abstractly represented Romanian Natura 2000 network as a co-occurrence network, with individual sites as nodes and shared species as edges, further combining into our analysis network topology, community detection, and network reduction methods. We identified most representative Natura 2000 sites that may increase the transfer of information within the national network of protected areas, detected clusters of sites and key sites for maintaining network cohesiveness, and highlighted the subsample of sites that retain the characteristics of the entire network. Our analysis provides implications for protected area prioritization by proposing a network perspective approach to collaboration rooted in ecological principles.

Introduction

Protected areas are established to safeguard biodiversity in the longterm by implementing conservation measures on well-defined territories (Watson et al., 2014). Protected areas are considered as ‘networks’ when they are under the same jurisdictions and governed by similar principles and regulations (Evans, 2012; Lemos and Agrawal, 2006). The Natura 2000 protected areas network of the European Union (EU) is a cornerstone of the EU’s biodiversity conservation strategy. EU Member States are required to designate Special Protection Areas (SPAs, for species covered by Birds Directive) and Sites of Community Importance (SCIs, for habitat and species covered by Habitats Directive) as part of EUs “Natura 2000 network” (Evans, 2012). To fully implement the Birds and Habitats Directives, Member States must take appropriate conservation measures to ensure a Favorable Conservation Status of protected habitats and species at the national and EUs biogeographical region levels (European Commission, 2011). These measures require collaborative approaches to conservation of species and habitats in Natura 2000 sites and sharing of best management and conservation practices (European Commision, 2015). The high number of Natura 2000 sites (over 27000 in the EU), their distribution across multiple biogeographic regions, and the diversity of their species assemblages, coupled with diverse managing organizations, makes difficult the flow of knowledge and expertise relevant to species and habitat management across Natura 2000 sites (Battisti and Fanelli, 2015; Hoffmann et al., 2018; Rozylowicz et al., 2017).