High versatility to meet conservation targets for biodiversity and hydrological services at the Riviera Maya, Quintana Roo, Mexico

Abstract

The ecosystem services (ES) framework has been proposed as an alternative to face the multiple challenges presented by biodiversity conservation, but the spatial conservation priorities of ES have been found to show low concordance levels with areas of high importance for biodiversity, which can lead to conflict during reserve design. To address this problem, the use of quantitative methods derived from systematic conservation planning has been proposed to identify spatial solutions that achieve the simultaneous representation of both elements in a spatially efficient manner. The aim of this study is to evaluate the differences between priority sites for biodiversity and hydrological ecosystem services (HES) using spatial prioritization models and to identify opportunities for co-benefits that allow an efficient conservation planning proposal, using as a case study the Riviera Maya, Mexico. The following hypothesis were tested by comparing models based on the prioritization algorithm Marxan: (1) Priority sites for biodiversity and HES are different, (2) HES priority sites adequately represent biodiversity conservation targets, and (3) integrating HES and biodiversity into one model is more efficient for representing conservation targets than combining the individual models for both elements. The results confirm: (1) Biodiversity and HES priority sites have different spatial patterns, sharing only 24% of priority sites, (2) HES priority sites achieve a high percentage (95%) of biodiversity conservation targets, showing that they can potentially be used for biodiversity representation, and (3) integrating HES and biodiversity into one model is more efficient to represent conservation targets than considering both elements individually (46% vs 66% of the study area). As there are no irreplaceable sites for biodiversity conservation, and less than 8% of the study area is covered by protected areas, there are clearly opportunities to align biodiversity and HES conservation actions at the Riviera Maya, Mexico. Despite the high context dependency of the spatial distribution of priority sites for biodiversity and HES, this study shows that the integration of conservation targets of both in the planning process can provide a solution to represent a high number of biodiversity and HES conservation targets.