Selecting priority areas to conserve Psittacines in the Brazilian cerrado: minimizing human–conservation conflicts

Abstract

The rapid destruction of habitat in biodiversity hotspots calls for the urgent formulation of conservation strategies. In this study, macro-scale biogeographical data for 33 species of Psittacines were used to select networks of priority areas, using an algorithm based on the complementarity concept. Human population size was also incorporated as a cost in the selection process, and the two networks of priority areas (with and without cost) were compared. In the comparison the number of cells selected to represent all species did not differ, but a rearrangement occurred between them. Two of the four cells were located in the same place, and the others changed location but stayed aggregated within the same regions. The study shows that it is possible to minimize human population size and represent all species in a network of priority areas.