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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Artículo científico |
| Language: | en |
| Published: |
Nature communications
2025
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41407690/ |
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Table of Contents:
- Current protected areas provide limited benefits for European river biodiversity. Sinclair, James S Stubbington, Rachel Welti, Ellen A R Aroviita, Jukka Baker, Nathan J Cañedo-Argüelles, Miguel Csabai, Zoltán Cunillera-Montcusí, David Domisch, Sami Ferréol, Martial Floury, Mathieu Forio, Marie Anne Eurie Goethals, Peter L M González-Ferreras, Alexia M Huttunen, Kaisa-Leena Johnson, Richard K Kuglerová, Lenka Larrañaga, Aitor Muotka, Timo Paavola, Riku Pařil, Petr Rasmussen, Jes J Schäfer, Ralf B Vannevel, Rudy Várbíró, Gábor Wilkes, Martin Haase, Peter Biodiversity Rivers Europe Conservation of Natural Resources Animals Ecosystem Invertebrates Fresh Water Protected areas are a principal conservation tool for addressing biodiversity loss. Such protection is especially needed in freshwaters, given their greater biodiversity losses compared to terrestrial and marine ecosystems. However, broad-scale evaluations of protected area effectiveness for freshwater biodiversity are lacking. Here, we provide a continental-scale analysis of the relationship between protected areas and freshwater biodiversity using 1,754 river invertebrate community time series sampled between 1986 and 2022 across ten European countries. Protected areas primarily benefited poor-quality communities (indicative of higher human impacts) that were protected, or that gained protection, across a substantial proportion of their upstream catchment. Protection had little to no influence on moderate- and high-quality communities, although high-quality communities potentially provide less scope for effect. Our results reveal the overall limited effectiveness of current protected areas for freshwater biodiversity, likely because they are typically designed and managed to achieve terrestrial conservation goals. Broadly improving effectiveness for freshwater biodiversity requires catchment-scale management approaches involving larger and more continuous upstream protection, and efforts to address remaining stressors. These approaches would also benefit connected terrestrial and coastal ecosystems, thus generally helping bend the curve of global biodiversity loss.