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The socioeconomic implications of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and perceptions of stakeholders on MPA impacts are important to consider when designing, implementing, and managing MPAs. However, the currently available knowledge about these areas and especially of stakeholder perceptions is scarce and limited to restricted geographic areas. The present study aims to address this gap by examining these factors in the Mediterranean and Black Seas using an extensive literature review and an online survey approach. We collated and examined a total of 208 published studies on socioeconomic impacts of MPAs and marine uses. We found that for fishing, the socioeconomic impacts of MPAs were generally perceived as negative for industrial fishing and positive for artisanal fishing. In the online survey, we collected ca. 100 responses and found that stakeholder perceptions on the impacts of MPAs differ across sectors and regions. Industrial fishing was perceived as being negatively impacted in the Black Sea, while most respondents from the Mediterranean Sea were neutral in their responses relating industrial fishing and MPAs. The impact of MPAs on artisanal and recreational fishing was generally viewed as neutral by respondents from the Black Sea, whereas most Mediterranean respondents indicated a positive impact of MPAs. We also found that perceptions of the major threats to MPAs differed across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Responses from the Black Sea were systematically shifted towards a more negative perception of threats to MPAs compared to those from the Mediterranean Sea. Illegal fishing and other illegal activities were considered to be the most relevant threats to MPAs by stakeholders in both regions. The mismatch found between evidence of MPA effectiveness and impacts from the scientific literature and the results of our survey suggests that within the framework of maritime spatial planning and ecosystem-based management, effective MPA planning should be informed by multiple sources across regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several projects aimed at identifying priority issues for conservation with high relevance to policy have recently been completed in several countries. Two major types of projects have been undertaken, aimed at identifying (i) policy-relevant questions most imperative to conservation and (ii) horizon scanning topics, defined as emerging issues that are expected to have substantial implications for biodiversity conservation and policy in the future. Here, we provide the first overview of the outcomes of biodiversity and conservation-oriented projects recently completed around the world using this framework. We also include the results of the first questions and horizon scanning project completed for a Mediterranean country. Overall, the outcomes of the different projects undertaken (at the global scale, in the UK, US, Canada, Switzerland and in Israel) were strongly correlated in terms of the proportion of questions and/or horizon scanning topics selected when comparing different topic areas. However, some major differences were found across regions. There was large variation among regions in the percentage of proactive (i.e. action and response oriented) versus descriptive (non-response oriented) priority questions and in the emphasis given to socio-political issues. Substantial differences were also found when comparing outcomes of priority questions versus horizon scanning projects undertaken for the same region. For example, issues related to climate change, human demography and marine ecosystems received higher priority as horizon scanning topics, while ecosystem services were more emphasized as current priority questions. We suggest that future initiatives aimed at identifying priority conservation questions and horizon scanning topics should allow simultaneous identification of both current and future priority issues, as presented here for the first time. We propose that further emphasis on social-political issues should be explicitly integrated into future related projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of global and regional coordination in conservation is growing, although currently, the majority of conservation programs are applied at national and subnational scales. Nevertheless, multinational programs incur transaction costs and resources beyond what is required in national programs. Given the need to maximize returns on investment within limited conservation budgets, it is crucial to quantify how much more biodiversity can be protected by coordinating multinational conservation efforts when resources are fungible. Previous studies that compared different scales of conservation decision-making mostly ignored spatial variability in biodiversity threats and the cost of actions. Here, we developed a simple integrating metric, taking into account both the cost of conservation and threats to biodiversity. We examined the Mediterranean Basin biodiversity hotspot; which encompasses over 20 countries. We discovered that for vertebrates to achieve similar conservation benefits, one would need substantially more money and area if each country were to act independently as compared to fully coordinated action across the Basin. A fully coordinated conservation plan is expected to save approximately US$67 billion, 45% of total cost, compared with the uncoordinated plan; and if implemented over a 10-year period, the plan would cost ≈0.1% of the gross national income of all European Union (EU) countries annually. The initiative declared in the recent Paris Summit for the Mediterranean provides a political basis for such complex coordination. Surprisingly, because many conservation priority areas selected are located in EU countries, a partly coordinated solution incorporating only EU-Mediterranean countries is almost as efficient as the fully coordinated scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim To test whether the distribution of alien bird impacts varies across bird families and regions of origin, and to investigate whether species traits associated with successful introductions can predict which species will have negative impacts in the new area of introduction. Location Europe and the Mediterranean Basin. Methods Combining historical information and published literature about negative economic, biological and human health impacts, we compared the distribution of impacts among bird families and native origins of bird species for three major types of impact (economic, biodiversity and human health). We examined the relationships between ecological, biological and reproductive characteristics of species and the severity of the impacts. Results The majority of alien species with reported impacts originated from the Afrotropical, Indo-Malayan and Palaearctic biogeographical regions. The distribution of alien bird species in Europe with reported impacts shows a taxonomic bias and largely mirrors patterns of establishment. While most species had primarily either economic or biodiversity impacts, several species in the Anatidae, Corvidae, Passeridae, Phasianidae and Sturnidae families were associated with moderate to serious negative impacts on both economic resources and native biodiversity. After controlling for taxonomic effects, species with the greatest overall impacts were habitat generalists and multi-brooded, while species with smaller bodies and the tendency to form large feeding or roosting flocks were linked with greater impacts on native biodiversity. Main conclusions This study presents the first synthesis of published impact data for alien birds and provides a broad-scale perspective on factors that contribute to their impacts. The results show that accounting for both species traits and taxonomy improves our ability to predict the impacts of alien bird species. Because several species are currently in the early stages of establishment in Europe, there may be an opportunity to limit negative impacts with efforts that promote proactive strategies against species and families possessing the above characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concern over the impact of invaders on biodiversity and on the functioning of ecosystems has generated a rising tide of comparative analyses aiming to unveil the factors that shape the success of introduced species across different regions. One limitation of these studies is that they often compare geographically rather than ecologically defined regions. We propose an approach that can help address this limitation: comparison of invasions across convergent ecosystems that share similar climates. We compared avian invasions in five convergent mediterranean climate systems around the globe. Based on a database of 180 introductions representing 121 avian species, we found that the proportion of bird species successfully established was high in all mediterranean systems (more than 40% for all five regions). Species differed in their likelihood to become established, although success was not higher for those originating from mediterranean systems than for those from nonmediterranean regions. Controlling for this taxonomic effect with generalized linear mixed models, species introduced into mediterranean islands did not show higher establishment success than those introduced to the mainland. Susceptibility to avian invaders, however, differed substantially among the different mediterranean regions. The probability that a species will become established was highest in the Mediterranean Basin and lowest in mediterranean Australia and the South African Cape. Our results suggest that many of the birds recently introduced into mediterranean systems, and especially into the Mediterranean Basin, have a high potential to establish self-sustaining populations. This finding has important implications for conservation in these biologically diverse hotspots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Artificial night lights pose a major threat to multiple species. However, this threat is often disregarded in conservation management and action because it is difficult to quantify its effect. Increasing availability of high spatial-resolution satellite images may enable us to better incorporate this threat into future work, particularly in highly modified ecosystems such as the coastal zone. In this study we examine the potential of satellite night light imagery to predict the distribution of the endangered loggerhead (Caretta caretta) and green (Chelonia mydas) sea turtle nests in the eastern Mediterranean coastline. Using remote sensing tools and high resolution data derived from the SAC-C satellite and the International Space Station, we examined the relationship between the long term spatial patterns of sea turtle nests and the intensity of night lights along Israel’s entire Mediterranean coastline. We found that sea turtles nests are negatively related to night light intensity and are concentrated in darker sections along the coast. Our resulting GLMs showed that night lights were a significant factor for explaining the distribution of sea turtle nests. Other significant variables included: cliff presence, human population density and infrastructure. This study is one of the first to show that night lights estimated with satellite-based imagery can be used to help explain sea turtle nesting activity at a detailed resolution over large areas. This approach can facilitate the management of species affected by night lights, and will be particularly useful in areas that are inaccessible or where broad-scale prioritization of conservation action is required. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Active and dynamic management of biodiversity is of utmost importance in the face of increasing human pressures on nature. Current approaches for site selection of protected areas often assume that both conservation features and management actions are fixed in space and time. However, this approach should be revised to allow for spatio-temporal shifts of biodiversity features, threats and management options. Our aim here was to demonstrate a novel approach for systematic conservation planning at a fine scale that incorporates dynamic ecological processes (e.g., succession), biodiversity targets and management costs. We used the new ‘Marxan with Zones’ decision support tool to spatially redistribute the major structural types of vegetation within a privately-owned nature park in Israel and facilitate the achievement of multiple conservation targets for minimum cost. The park is located in the Mediterranean climate region of the eastern Mediterranean Basin, one of Earth’s richest biodiversity hotspots. This small park alone (4.5km2) holds 660 species of native plants and six structural types of vegetation. The region has been subject to manifold human pressures such as grazing, clearing and fire for millennia and is currently threatened by a range of modern human-related activities (e.g., invasive alien species). By spatially redistributing the six structural vegetation types under three scenarios, representing different conservation objectives (no change, equal distribution – evenness of structural types, preference to early succession stages) within three budget frameworks, we identified a set of near-optimal conservation strategies that can be enacted over time. The current spatial distribution of structural types and the cost of changing one structural type into another via management actions had a major impact on the spatial prioritization outcomes and management recommendations. Notably, an advanced successional stage (dense Mediterranean garrigue) tended to dominate a large portion of the landscape when the available budgets were low because it is a relatively inexpensive structural type to maintain. The approach presented here can be further applied to spatially prioritize conservation goals in the face of shifting environments and climates, allowing dynamic conservation planning at multiple spatial scales. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Systematic conservation planning has rapidly advanced in the past decade and has been increasingly incorporated in multiple studies and conservation projects. One of its requirements is a quantitative definition of conservation targets. While the Convention on Biological Diversity aims to expand the world's protected area network to 17% of the land surface, in many cases such uniform policy-driven targets may not be appropriate for achieving persistence of various species. Targets are often set arbitrarily, often because information required for the persistence of each species is unavailable or unknown in the focal region. Conservation planners therefore need to establish complementary novel approaches to address the gaps in setting targets. Here, we develop and present a novel method that aims to help guide the selection of conservation targets, providing support for decision makers, planners, and managers. This is achieved by examining the overall flexibility of the conservation network resulting from conservation prioritization, and aiming for greater flexibility. To test this approach we applied the decision support tool Marxan to determine marine conservation priority areas in the eastern Mediterranean Sea as a case study. We assessed the flexibility of the conservation network by comparing 80 different scenarios in which conservation targets were gradually increased and assessed by a range of calculated metrics (e.g., the percentage of the total area selected, the overall connectivity). We discovered that when conservation targets were set too low (i.e., below 10% of the distribution range of each species), very few areas were identified as irreplaceable and the conservation network was not well defined. Interestingly, when conservation targets were set too high (over 50% of the species' range), too many conservation priority areas were selected as irreplaceable, an outcome which is realistically infeasible to implement. As a general guideline, we found that flexibility in a conservation network is adequate when ~10-20% of the study area is considered irreplaceable (selection frequency values over 90%). This approach offers a useful sensitivity analysis when applying target-based systematic conservation planning tools, ensuring that the resulting protected area conservation network offers more choices for managers and decision makers.