KEVIN J GASTON

Durán, A.P., Rauch, J. & Gaston, K.J. 2013. Spatial coincidence between protected areas and metal mining activities. Biological Conservation 160, 272-278.

The global protected area (PA) system has a key role to play in biological conservation, and it is thus vital to understand the factors that are likely to limit this potential. Attention to date has focused foremost on the consequences of biases in the spatial distribution of PAs for their effectiveness and efficiency in representing biodiversity. What is less clear is the extent to which these biases may also have affected the likelihood with which PAs coincide with or are influenced by particular kinds of threatening processes, further undermining their role. An obvious candidate for such concerns is metal mining activities. Here we demonstrate that approximately 7% of mines for four key metals directly overlap with PAs and a further 27% lie within 10 km of a PA boundary. Moreover, those PAs with mining activity within their boundaries constitute around 6% of the total areal coverage of the global terrestrial PA system, and those with mining activity within or up to 10 km from their boundary constitute nearly 14% of the total area. Given the distances over which mining activities can have influences, the persistence of their effects (often long after actual operations have closed down), and the rapidly growing demand for metals, there is an urgent need to limit or mitigate such conflicts.

Lennox, G.D., Gaston, K.J., Acs, S., Dallimer, M., Hanley, N. & Armsworth, P.R. 2013. Conservation when landowners have bargaining power: continuous conservation investments and cost uncertainty. Ecological Economics 93, 69-78.

Spatially heterogeneous costs of securing conservation agreements should be accounted forwhen prioritizing properties for conservation investment. Most researchers incorporating conservation costs into analyses have relied on estimates of landowners’ opportunity costs of accepting a conservation agreement. Implicitly assumed in such studies is therefore that thosewho“produce” biodiversity (landowners) receive none of the surplus available from trade. Instead, landowners could use their bargaining power to gain profits from conservation investments. We employ game theory to determine the surplus landowners could obtain in negotiations over conservation agreements, and the consequent effects on conservation outcomes,when enrolment decisions are governed by continuous variables (e.g. the proportion of a property to enrol). In addition, we consider how landowner uncertainty regarding the opportunity costs of other landowners affects these outcomes. Landowners’ ability to gain surplus is highly variable and reflects variation in the substitutability of different properties for achieving a specified conservation objective. The ability of landowners to obtain profits from conservation agreements results in conservation outcomes that are substantially diminished relative to when landowners accept investment at opportunity costs. Uncertainty increases landowner profits, leading to a greater diminution in conservation benefits.

Tang, Z., Fang, J., Chi, X., Feng, J., Liu, Y., Shen, Z., Wang, X., Wang, Z., Wu, X., Zheng, C. & Gaston, K.J. 2012. Patterns of plant beta-diversity along elevational and latitudinal gradients in mountain forests of China. Ecography 35, 1083-1091.

Biodiversity patterns and their underlying mechanisms have long been focal topics of study for ecologists and biogeographers. However, compared with spatial variation in species richness (alpha- and gamma-diversity), beta-diversity, or the dissimilarity of species composition between two or more sites has until recently received limited attention. In this study, we explored the large-scale patterns of altitudinal turnover (beta-diversity) of plants in montane forests of China, based on systematic inventories of 1153 plots from 46 mountains distributed over ~30 degrees of latitude (21.9–51.7°N) and ~4100 m of altitude (160–4250 m). The beta-diversity of trees and shrubs declined significantly with increasing latitude. Along the altitudinal gradient, beta-diversity of both trees and shrubs showed non-significant trends in most mountains. Differences in climate explained ~30.0% of the variation in tree beta-diversity, with mean annual temperature being most important, and ~10.0% of that in shrub beta-diversity, with annual actual evapotranspiration and annual precipitation as the main predictors. However, climatic controls of beta-diversity varied dramatically in different biogeograpical regions. The beta-diversity of trees exhibited stronger, whereas that of shrubs showed weaker, climatic patterns in temperate and arid than subtropical regions. These results suggest that mechanisms causing patterns of beta-diversity may differ between latitudinal and altitudinal gradients, and among biogeographical regions; as a result, caution should be exercised in drawing close parallels between patterns and causes of beta-diversity along latitudinal and altitudinal gradients and among regions.

Tang, Z., Fang, J., Chi, X., Yang, Y., Ma, W., Mohhamot, A., Guo, Z., Liu, Y. & Gaston, K.J. 2012. Geography, environment, and spatial turnover of species in China’s grasslands. Ecography 35, 1103-1109.

Environment and spatial processes are key factors in shaping species composition in a community. These two factors make competing predictions concerning the decay of species composition similarity with environmental divergence and geographic distance. Unfortunately, these can be difficult to test independently because changes in environment are commonly well correlated with geographic distance. However, an opportunity is provided by exploiting marked regional differences in the spatial structure of the environment. In this study, we test the predictions of environment filtering and dispersal in explaining species turnover using ~300 study sites spanning ~4000 km, across three major grasslands in China in which the environment is spatially structured to different degrees. We find that species composition similarity decayed with environmental divergence in the same way in all three regions, and even across biogeographic regions between which dispersal barriers are evident; in contrast, the decay of species composition similarity with geographic distance depended largely on the spatial structure of the environment. We conclude that, at the scale of study, environmental filtering rather than spatial processes best explains patterns of species turnover in China’s grasslands.

Keniger, L.E., Gaston, K.J., Irvine, K.N. & Fuller, R.A. 2013. What are the benefits of interacting with nature? International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 10, 913-935.

There is mounting empirical evidence that interacting with nature delivers measurable benefits to people. Reviews of this topic have generally focused on a specific type of benefit, been limited to a single discipline, or covered the benefits delivered from a particular type of interaction. Here we construct novel typologies of the settings, interactions and potential benefits of people-nature experiences, and use these to organise an assessment of the benefits of interacting with nature. We discover that evidence for the benefits of interacting with nature is geographically biased towards high latitudes and Western societies, potentially contributing to a focus on certain types of settings and benefits. Social scientists have been the most active researchers in this field. Contributions from ecologists are few in number, perhaps hindering the identification of key ecological features of the natural environment that deliver human benefits. Although many types of benefits have been studied, benefits to physical health, cognitive performance and psychological well-being have received much more attention than the social or spiritual benefits of interacting with nature, despite the potential for important consequences arising from the latter. The evidence for most benefits is correlational, and although there are several experimental studies, little as yet is known about the mechanisms that are important for delivering these benefits. For example, we do not know which characteristics of natural settings (e.g., biodiversity, level of disturbance, proximity, accessibility) are most important for triggering a beneficial interaction, and how these characteristics vary in importance among cultures, geographic regions and socio-economic groups. These are key directions for future research if we are to design landscapes that promote high quality interactions between people and nature in a rapidly urbanising world.

de Boer, W.F., van Langevelde, F., Prins, H.H.T., de Ruiter, P.C., Blanc, J., Vis, M.J.P., Gaston, K.J. & Douglas-Hamilton, I. 2013. Understanding spatial differences in African elephant densities and occurrence, a continent-wide analysis. Biological Conservation 159, 468-476.

The densities and survival of many wild animals are presently at risk. Crucial for improving conservation actions is an understanding on a large scale of the relative importance of human and ecological factors in determining the distribution and densities of species. However, even for such charismatic species as the African elephant (Loxodonta africana), spatially explicit, large-scale analyses are lacking, although various local-scale studies are available. Here we show through continent-scale analysis that ecological factors, such as food availability, are correlated with the presence of elephants, but human factors are better predictors of elephant population densities where elephants are present. These densities strongly correlate with conservation policy, literacy rate, corruption and economic welfare, and associate less with the availability of food or water for these animals. Our results suggest that conservation strategies should be organized in a socioeconomic context. The successful conservation of large animal species could depend more on good human education, greater literacy, good governance, and less corruption, than merely setting aside areas for conservation.

Irvine, K.N., Warber, S.L., Devine-Wright, P. & Gaston, K.J. 2013. Understanding urban green space as a health resource: a qualitative comparison of visit motivation and derived effects among park users in Sheffield, UK. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 10, 417-442.

With increasing interest in the use of urban green space to promote human health, there is a need to understand the extent to which park users conceptualize these places as a resource for health and well-being. This study sought to examine park users’ own reasons for and benefits from green space usage and compare these with concepts and constructs in existing person-environment-health theories and models of health. Conducted in 13 public green spaces in Sheffield, UK, we undertook a qualitative content analysis of 312 park users’ responses to open-ended interview questions and identified a breadth, depth and salience of visit motivators and derived effects. Findings highlight a discrepancy between reasons for visiting and derived effects from the use of urban green space. Motivations emphasized walking, green space qualities, and children. Derived effects highlighted relaxation, positive emotions within the self and towards the place, and spiritual well-being. We generate a taxonomy of motivations and derived effects that could facilitate operationalization within empirical research and articulate a conceptual framework linking motivators to outcomes for investigating green space as a resource for human health and well-being.