Design of reserve networks and the persistence of biodiversity

Sophisticated computational methods have been developed to help us to identify sets of nature reserves that maximize the representation of regional diversity, but, until recently, the methods have not dealt explicitly and directly with the main goal of reserve networks, that of the long-term maintenance of biodiversity. Furthermore, the successful application of current methods requires reliable information about species distributions, which is not always available. Recent results show that data quality, as well as the choice of surrogates for biodiversity, could be critical for successful reserve design. Because of these problems and a lack of communication between scientists and managers, the impact of computational site-selection tools in applied conservation planning has been minimal.