Presented by Julian D. Olden at the University of British Columbia (2011)

1. Freshwater Protected Areas and Defining a
Conservation Blueprint for Desert Fishes
Julian D. Olden and Angela L. Strecker
University of Washington

2. The Blue Planet Crisis
• Freshwater organisms are among
the most imperiled worldwide.
• Actual and estimated future
extinction rates exceed most
terrestrial and marine systems
(Ricciardi & Rasmussen 1999).
• Recent global estimates indicate
that 25-30% of evaluated
freshwater fishes are considered
threatened with extinction (Vié et
al. 2009).

4. Threats to Freshwater Ecosystems
Habitat loss Invasive species Pollution
Fragmentation Disease Climate change

5. • Despite the severity of the threats they face, amphibians and
fish were the least-studied groups over the past 20 years

6. Challenge Synopsis
• Comparatively little effort has been devoted to the design and
implementation of freshwater conservation planning.
• Instead, uninformed opportunism has reigned, whereby
conservation goals of freshwater ecosystems are often
secondary to those developed for terrestrial ecosystems.
• Traditional notions of conservation planning translate
imperfectly to the freshwater realm, therefore freshwaters
have been largely ignored in conservation accounting
schemes.

7. • Freshwater ecosystems have distinctive properties that
challenge many key tenets of conservation planning
Longitudinal, lateral
and groundwater
connectivity
Threats originate within
and outside watershed
boundaries
EPA Limited dispersal that is
confined to defined
habitat corridors

8. Today’s Presentation
Conservation Opportunities for Today …
• Can lands set-aside for terrestrial conservation serve as a
foundation for a comprehensive network of freshwater
protected areas?
… and the Future
• Where should we seek new conservation opportunities to
protect freshwater biodiversity in a cost-efficient manner?

9. Freshwater Protected Areas
• Scientists have recently begun to explore the potential of
establishing freshwater protected areas (FPAs) as one approach to
curtail the loss of biodiversity in freshwater ecosystems.
• Originally developed for terrestrial conservation, and applied over
the past two decades to marine systems, protected areas have
emerged as a leading tool for conservation.
2007
2009
2002

10. • One of the first steps in designing a representative network of
FPAs is taking stock of what is contained within current
protected area systems.
• Protected areas that combine protection for terrestrial and
freshwater resources could be prioritized to promote efficient
spending of limited conservation dollars (Abell et al. 2010).
• Somewhat surprising is the almost complete lack of broad-
scale empirical information on freshwater resources within
terrestrial protected areas.

11. Objective
• To provide the first national assessment of the biological
representation for native freshwater fishes provided by the
National Park Service (NPS)
• We assess the ecological threats to park watersheds and
management challenges to utilizing NPS units as FPAs
• Our priority was to identify parks that could serve as the core
members of a FPA network to “protect” freshwater fish
diversity
• Dave Lawrence, Eric Larson, Cathy Reidy Liermann , Meryl Mims, Thomas Pool,
and Julian D. Olden (Conservation Letters, in revision)

12. Methods
National Parks Representation
• Selected 147 parks whose • Compiled a list of all US fishes
primary mission was the (and those considered
preservation of natural threatened)
resources • Derived species lists for major
• Collated species lists using the watershed and ecoregions
National Park Service
Biodiversity Database Ecological threats
• Validated (and supplemented!) • Developed a cumulative threat
species lists based on a index to rank each park’s current
literature review and (and projected) future integrity
conversations with park
managers – Human land use
– River regulation by dams
– Species invasiveness

13. Findings
• National parks provide representation for
62% (478 species) of the native US fishes
• NPS units provide relatively poor
representation for species of conservation
concern: 27 of the 153 highly imperiled fish
species (18%)
• One-third (30%) of all the native fish species
contained in the NPS occurred in only one
park across all parks considered in this study

15. Management Challenges
• A major constraint to utilizing NPS units as protected areas is that
their ecological integrity is subject to anthropogenic disturbances
that occur outside of park boundaries.

16. Conclusion
• NPS units contain almost two-thirds of the freshwater fish species
within the United States
• Additional representation may be achieved by:
• Adding units for ecoregions with poor representation
• Expanding the mission of some historic and recreational
NP units to increase protection for fish biodiversity
• Our results assist the NPS to understand each parks’ contribution
to the broader national biodiversity puzzle, and help in the
development of new policy that supports a comprehensive,
network-based conservation strategy

17. Conclusion
• The vast majority of parks had contributing watersheds that
extended well outside of their boundaries, but the contributing
catchment of many NPS units is held in some form of
conservation status
• Vast opportunities for integrated watershed protection

18. Conservation challenges are likely the greatest in dryland
regions
• Over two billion people are currently inhabiting arid regions globally
• Nexus of population growth, complex water policy, and endemic native species
• Represent one of the most threatened habitat types (Olson and Dinerstein 1998)

19. Lower Colorado River Basin
• The Lower Colorado River
Basin is emblematic of the
conservation challenges
facing dryland systems.
• Wild, volatile, and
unpredictable, the natural
river varied dramatically
from its headwaters to the
delta, from year to year,
and from season to season.

20. Settlement and Change
• Discovery of gold in California
(1849) triggered a western
migration and brought with it
Amon Carter Museum
ranching, mining and
steamboats
• Rapid urbanization and
population growth after WWII

21. The Lifeline of the American Southwest
• The Colorado River was critical in the settlement, growth and
economic development of the American Southwest
The river provides:
– Irrigation water for >3 million acres of farmland
– Domestic water to 30 million people in the U.S. and Mexico
– 12 billion kilowatt-hours of hydroelectric power a year

22. Dams and Diversions

24. Over-allocated most years
Woodhouse et al. (2006)
Increased aridity in the future
Seager et al. (2007)

25. A desert river and its lost native fishes
• Harsh hydrologic, thermal
Mueller and Marsh (2002)
and sediment conditions
have resulted in a globally-
endemic fish fauna
• Only one predatory species
• Strong naivety to predation
• Extreme longevity
• High species
endangerment: 49 species
(42 are endemic, over half
listed under ESA)
USGS

27. Devil’s Hole,
Nevada

28. Rapidly spreading invasive species
• LCRB has the dubious
distinction of being a
global invasion hotspot,
where the number of
non-native fish species
more than double the
number of native
species.
• Ecological impacts of
invasive fishes are
widespread.
Data from Olden & Poff (2005)

29. Conservation Needs
• Practitioners in the LCRB are seeking guidance on how best to
allocate limited resources toward freshwater protection
• Most management efforts target individual sites or rivers without
being informed by broader-scale conservation needs or priorities
Abell etet al. 2007
Abell al. (2007)

30. Objectives
• Provide the first systematic prioritization for freshwaters that
incorporates multiple (and complementary) conservation values
describing fish taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity.
• Test the concordance of different conservation strategies under
scenarios of contemporary threats to biodiversity, as well as under
projections of future climate change and human population
growth.
• Highlight the use of systematic conservation planning for the
optimal allocation of limited resources for freshwater
conservation.

31. Approach
• Conservation prioritization
algorithm using Zonation best 5-10%
software best 2-5%
– hierarchical ranking of priority best 2%
areas/cells
– emphasis complementarity
Moilanen et al. 2005
• Strengths:
– can incorporate interactions
among species
– can incorporate freshwater
connectivity, i.e., river
catchments are linked
planning units no connectivity habitat connectivity
Hermoso et al. 2010

32. Methods: Data acquisition
• Assembled species records for
entire basin
– combination of government,
university, and museum
records
– > 1.8 million records dating
from 1840s
– only include recent species
records (1980 onwards)
• Unequal sampling effort
– large focus on Grand Canyon &
Little Colorado regions
– poor representation of some
taxa

33. Methods: Species distribution models
• We used multivariate adaptive
regression splines (MARS:
Friedman 1991) to model
species distributions
– non-linear responses
– multi-response model
informed by data from well-
represented species
Bill Williams River, Arizona
• Illustrated success for modeling species distributions in freshwater
ecosystems (Leathwick et al. 2005)
• Model performance was evaluated using area under the Receiver
Operating Characteristic curve based on 10-fold cross validation

34. Methods: Species distribution models
Temperature
• Modeled distribution of 40
native and non-native species
as a function of:
Precipitation
– landscape variables (e.g.,
elevation, gradient)
– local variables (e.g., canals,
dams, agriculture)
– climatic variables (e.g., CV
spring precipitation, average
temperature)
– historical biogeography
Dams
Urban

35. Desert sucker
• Native species
• AUC = 0.88
Probability of
occurrence
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
CV winter precipitation

36. Red shiner
• Non-native species
• AUC = 0.87
Probability of
occurrence
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
CV winter precipitation

37. Metrics of Biodiversity
Taxonomic diversity
– Used actual and modeled species distributions to describe species
composition of each watershed
Functional diversity
– Used data on 9 life-history traits (Olden et al. 2006) to quantify trait
composition of each watershed
Phylogenetic diversity
– Used a qualitative phylogeny (Olden et al. 2008) to describe
phylogenetic (node) composition of each watershed
Species Node
Trait State
Node
Trait State
Watershed
Watershed
Species
X =

38. Zonation Methods
Fragmentation and home range
Defined 3 parameters:
1. Fragmentation curves for 3. Species’ weightings
species’ connectivity – equal
requirements – based on Desert Fishes Council
– based on historic vs. recommendations (e.g., desert
contemporary sensitivity to sucker = 1.67; Virgin River
fragmentation spinedace = 2.33)
(Fagan et al. 2002, 2005)
2. Species’ landscape
requirements based on
predicted home range size
from maximum body size
(Minns 1995)

39. Zonation Methods
Threats and non-native species
• Multi-parameter threat index • Non-native species interaction
describing land use, waterway layer (non-native richness)
and human development
low threat 0
0-1
1-3
3-5
5-7
Las Vegas high threat Las Vegas
7-12
Phoenix Phoenix
Paukert et al. (2011)

40. Findings
Efforts to conserve endangered fishes of the LCRB
will be met with a number of opportunities, trade-
offs and challenges.

41. Conservation Opportunities
Identifying critical locations
Taxonomic Diversity
major cities Conservation priority (%)
NV NV
large dams 0 - 10 50 - 60
UT UT 10 - 20 60 - 70
large rivers
20 - 30 70 - 80
state lines 30 - 40 80 - 90
40 - 50 90 – 100
Las Vegas
Hoover Dam
AZ AZ
NM NM
Grand Canyon
Flagstaff
CA Phoenix Salt R. CA
Gila R.
Mexico Mexico
Tucson
0 3060 120 180 240
Kilometers

42. Conservation Opportunities
Identifying a comprehensive network
• High level of concordance functional – taxonomic
between areas of conservation functional – phylogenetic
taxonomic – phylogenetic
priority (top 10%) for different
all scenarios
dimensions of biodiversity
100
Congruence (%)
• 75-88% congruence for the 80
conservation priorities for 60
each diversity measure 40
(p<0.001)
20
0
• ~5500 km2 represents at least 0 20 40 60 80 100
10% of all species occurrences Best % of landscape

43. Conservation Opportunities
Identifying immediate targets
GAP classifications of
protected areas
1
• 34-39% of the top 2
3
conservation priorities are 4
currently within lands
classified as having permanent
“protection” from land
conversion
– 14-15% with a natural
disturbance regime
– 20-24% with a managed
disturbance regime

44. Conservation Trade-offs
Identifying a comprehensive network
Difference in • Notable regions of spatial
conservation priority mismatch between
-1.00 – -0.75
-0.75 – -0.45 phyl > conservation priorities for
-0.45 – -0.15 tax
-0.15 – 0.15
0.15 – 0.45
biodiversity targets
tax >
0.45 – 0.75
0.75 – 1.00 phyl
• Mismatches may indicate
unique ecological or
evolutionary processes that
are critical for conservation
Apache Trout

45. Conservation Trade-offs
Identifying a comprehensive network
1.0
Proportion of distribution
0.8
remaining
0.6
0.4
taxonomic diversity
functional diversity
0.2
phylogenetic diversity
0.0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Proportion of landscape removed

46. Conservation Challenges
Contemporary threats
• > 25% of the conservation
taxonomic diversity
functional diversity priorities are located in areas
phylogenetic diversity with high non-native species
40 richness and high
contemporary threats
Congruence (%)
30
• Inclusion of species
20 interactions in algorithm
resulted in a 16% increase in
10 area required to meet
conservation priorities
0
Non-native Environmental
Richness Threats • The continuous nature of
(top 20%) (top 20%)
riverine ecosystems challenges
conservation efforts

47. Conservation Challenges
Future threats
• Projections of future (2100) air temperature, precipitation and
impervious land cover for A2 emissions scenario.
Δ Annual temperature (%) Impervious surface - 2100 (%)
0-1
9 – 11 Δ Annual precipitation (%) 2 - 10
11 – 13 11 - 20
-13 – -9
13 – 15 21 - 30
-9 – -6 31 - 40
15 – 17
-6 – -3 41 - 50
17 – 19
-3 – 0 51 - 60
0–3 61 - 70
3–6
6–9
9 – 12
Ensemble of 16 GCMs
ICLUS (EPA, 2010)
(ClimateWizard, 2010)

48. Conservation Challenges
Future threats
• Conservation efforts must
taxonomic diversity contend with projected
functional diversity
phylogenetic diversity warming (3-4°C by 2100) and
harsher droughts and extreme
40
floods
Congruence (%)
30
• Percent congruence with
20
conservation priorities:
10
– Temperature: 14-15%
– Precipitation: 26-32%
0 – Impervious: 3-6%
Temp Prec Impervious
(top 20%) (top 10% & surface
bottom 10%) (top 20%)

49. Conclusions
• Systematic conservation planning requires:
– a focus on multiple and complementary aspects of biological diversity
– information on both contemporary and future threats to maximize
long-term species persistence
• Efforts to conserve endangered fishes of the LCRB will be met with
a number of opportunities, trade-offs and challenges
• Prioritizing watersheds that are the most important for their
contribution to basin-wide representation of biodiversity can
inform land transactions and local-scale conservation efforts

51. Prospectus
• Meeting the conservation needs of freshwater ecosystems
will require the use of systematic planning that accounts for
multiple dimensions of biodiversity and ecological threats

52. Acknowledgements
Angela Strecker
Dave Lawrence
Craig Paukert (University of Missouri)
Jodi Whittier (University of Missouri)
Mark Kennard (Griffith University)
Desert Fish Habitat Partnership
Funding:
USGS Status and Trends Program
USGS National Gap Analysis Program