Institutes
Refine
Document Type
- Article (2) (remove)
Language
- English (2) (remove)
Has Fulltext
- yes (2)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (2)
Keywords
- DNA metabarcoding (1)
- ITS (1)
- biodiversity protection (1)
- conservation funding (1)
- conservation planning (1)
- decision making (1)
- elevational gradient (1)
- fungal pathogens (1)
- global change (1)
- long-term protection (1)
Institute
Establishing and maintaining protected areas (PAs) is a key action in delivering post-2020 biodiversity targets. PAs often need to meet multiple objectives, ranging from biodiversity protection to ecosystem service provision and climate change mitigation, but available land and conservation funding is limited. Therefore, optimizing resources by selecting the most beneficial PAs is vital. Here, we advocate for a flexible and transparent approach to selecting PAs based on multiple objectives, and illustrate this with a decision support tool on a global scale. The tool allows weighting and prioritization of different conservation objectives according to user-specified preferences as well as real-time comparison of the outcome. Applying the tool across 1,346 terrestrial PAs, we demonstrate that decision makers frequently face trade-offs among conflicting objectives, e.g., between species protection and ecosystem integrity. Nevertheless, we show that transparent decision support tools can reveal synergies and trade-offs associated with PA selection, thereby helping to illuminate and resolve land-use conflicts embedded in divergent societal and political demands and values.
1. Plant-fungal interactions are important for plant community assembly, but quantifying these relationships remains challenging. High throughput sequencing of fungal communities allows us to identify plant-fungal associations at a high level of resolution, but often fails to provide information on taxonomic and functional assignment of fungi. 2. We transplanted seeds of Pinus cembra across an elevational gradient (1850–2250 m a.s.l.) and identified environmental factors and known fungal associates important for seedling establishment and survival. We then applied null model tests to identify taxonomically unassigned fungi associated with pine recruitment. 3. Early seedling establishment was determined by abiotic environmental factors, while seedling survival was predominantly affected by biotic environmental factors (i.e., the abundance of a fungal pathogen known from literature and the distance to adult trees). Null model tests identified known mycorrhizal partners and a large number of unknown operational taxonomic units (OTUs) associated with seedling survival, including saprotrophic and pathogenic species. These results highlight that unknown fungal OTUs, which are usually discarded from analyses, could play a crucial role for plant survival. 4. Synthesis. We conclude that high throughput metabarcoding paired with null model tests, is a valuable approach for identifying hidden plant-fungal associations within large and complex DNA metabarcoding datasets. Such an approach can be an important tool in illuminating the black box of plant-microbe interactions, and thus understanding ecosystem dynamics.