Designing spatially-concerned ecological reserve
networks in the presence of hotspots
Diogo ALAGADOR∗, J. Orestes CERDEIRA†‡
Resumo
In the design of ecological reserve networks there are special sites whose
ecologic, strategic or morphologic values dictate their inclusion. The existence of regional rare or confined-distribution species is one among other
reasons that often determines the existence of such mandatory sites, refered as hotspots. Moreover, inter-relationships in the ecosystem structure
quite often determine hotspots located far apart. The existing reserve
design methods that seek efficiency and clustering of sites are not suitable
to deal with the occurrence of hotspots. Those that incorporate target
criteria to encourage aggregation of sites are not capable to avoid the fragmentation that the existence of distant hotspots create. Methods that enforce full connectivity of sites act in the same way as the algorithms meant
to establish wildlife corridors to connect fragmented landscapes, and give
rise to long and thin reserves, where edge-effects and species avoidance
are enhanced. Hence specific methods to design ecological reserves when
hotspots exist are needed. We discuss and propose a model to deal with
this issue.
Keywords: reserve design, spatial attributes, mathematical modeling,
0-1 linear programming.
∗ Unidade Matemática Aplicada-IISA, Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Univ. Técnica de
Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017 Lisboa, Portugal, [email protected]
† Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Univ. Técnica de Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017
Lisboa, Portugal, [email protected] (Corresponding author).
‡ This author’s research was financially supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science
and Technology (FCT).
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