Abstract
Year 2020 is pivotal for biodiversity. The European Commission has adopted a new Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 as a core component of the European Green Deal, and development of the post-2020 goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is ongoing. The EU and its member states will soon be bound to environmental commitments at continental and global level, including the expansion of coverage of the Natura 2000 network of protected areas from the current 18% to 30%. We identified four major challenges that need to be overcome in order to achieve this goal: - the EU and the CBD focus on different biodiversity elements: priority habitats and species (EU), or sites of particular importance for biodiversity (CBD); - accounting for projected biodiversity change is paramount to avoid failure; - most data relate to only one level of biodiversity (species), but information on other levels (genes, ecosystems) has to be accounted for when assessing progress towards goals; - the last records of species occurrence are sometimes decades old. As biodiversity declines and communities change, assessing the currency of data used to identify priorities is necessary. We aim to build on recent advancements in eco- and bio-informatics to identify priority sites to expand the coverage of Natura 2000 to 30% of the land, synergistically contributing to he achievement of the EU and CBD goals. Sites will also maximise the immediate protection and future persistence of biodiversity under global change, and we will assess their broad representativeness across levels of biodiversity and their currency. We will use a mix of large databases on occurrence of habitats and species, remote sensing data and other environmental digital cartography to identify sites hosting priority species and candidate sites of particular importance for biodiversity (using the Key Biodiversity Areas methodology). We will then apply optimization methods to identify, among these sites, the set that would best complement the existing Natura 2000 network to reach 30% coverage, while maximising representation of all habitats and species, selecting sites with minimal projected climate change, and maximising network connectivity. These sites represent synergistic priorities for conservation in the EU. We will then focus on Italian sites, making use of additional data, either mobilized or collected in the field for the purpose of this project.To assess representativeness, we will quantify intraspecific diversity, distribution of poorly-known terrestrial arthropods, and newly-developed maps of ecosystem integrity, to compare biodiversity in priority sites vs. matching non-priority control sites. To assess the proportion of biodiversity recorded over time that is still extant today, we will carry out field re-surveys of plants and terrestrial arthropods in sites that were sampled ca. 50 years ago, estimate turnover, and correlate it with drivers of change.
Dettagli del progetto
Responsabile scientifico: Roberto Cazzolla Gatti
Strutture Unibo coinvolte:
Dipartimento di Scienze Biologiche, Geologiche e Ambientali
Coordinatore:
ALMA MATER STUDIORUM - Università di Bologna(Italy)
Contributo totale di progetto: Euro (EUR) 205.513,00
Contributo totale Unibo: Euro (EUR) 86.513,00
Durata del progetto in mesi: 24
Data di inizio
05/10/2023
Data di fine:
04/10/2025
