title: Expanding Kenya's protected areas under the Convention on Biological Diversity to maximize coverage of plant diversity.
abstract: Biodiversity is highly valuable and critically threatened by anthropogenic degradation of the natural environment. In response, governments have pledged enhanced protected-area coverage, which requires scarce biological data to identify conservation priorities. To assist this effort, we mapped conservation priorities in Kenya based on maximizing alpha (species richness) and beta diversity (species turnover) of plant communities while minimizing economic costs. We used plant-cover percentages from vegetation surveys of over 2000 plots to build separate models for each type of diversity. Opportunity and management costs were based on literature data and interviews with conservation organizations. Species richness was predicted to be highest in a belt from Lake Turkana through Mount Kenya and in a belt parallel to the coast, and species turnover was predicted to be highest in western Kenya and along the coast. Our results suggest the expanding reserve network should focus on the coast and northeastern provinces of Kenya, where new biological surveys would also fill biological data gaps. Meeting the Convention on Biological Diversity target of 17% terrestrial coverage by 2020 would increase representation of Kenya's plant communities by 75%. However, this would require about 50 times more funds than Kenya has received thus far from the Global Environment Facility.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Environmental Engineering, ETH Zurich, John-von-Neumann-Weg 9, 8093, Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Scherer
authors.affiliation: Institute of Environmental Engineering, ETH Zurich, John-von-Neumann-Weg 9, 8093, Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Curran
authors.affiliation: INRES-Vegetation Ecology, University of Bonn, Nußallee 1, 53115, Bonn, Germany.
authors.forename: Miguel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Alvarez
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000191:economics*; D007630:Kenya; D010944:Plants
keywords: alpha diversity; beta diversity; community modeling; costos de manejo; costos de oportunidad; diseño de censos; diversidad alfa; diversidad beta; environmental surrogacy; management costs; modelado de comunidades; opportunity costs; priorización de la conservación espacial; spatial conservation prioritization; survey design; sustituto ambiental