new article on African protected areas

new article on African protected areas

October 10, 2014

Wegmann et al_Phil_Trans_PA_irreplaceabilityOur new article about the “Role of African protected areas in maintaining connectivity for large mammals” has been published in a special issue on Remote Sensing in Biodiversity and Conservation.

The African protected area (PA) network has the potential to act as a set of functionally interconnected patches that conserve meta-populations of mammal species, but individual PAs are vulnerable to habitat change which may disrupt connectivity and increase extinction risk. Individual PAs have different roles in maintaining connectivity, depending on their size and location. We measured their contribution to network connectivity (irreplaceability) for carnivores and ungulates and combined it with a measure of vulnerability based on a 30-year trend in remotely sensed vegetation cover (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index). Highly irreplaceable PAs occurred mainly in southern and eastern Africa. Vegetation cover change was generally faster outside than inside PAs and particularly so in southern Africa. The extent of change increased with the distance from PAs. About 5% of highly irreplaceable PAs experienced a faster vegetation cover loss than their surroundings, thus requiring particular conservation attention. Our analysis identified PAs at risk whose isolation would disrupt the connectivity of the PA network for large mammals. This is an example of how ecological spatial modelling can be combined with large-scale remote sensing data to investigate how land cover change may affect ecological processes and species conservation.


 

 

Theme Issue ‘Satellite remote sensing for biodiversity research and conservation applications’ compiled and edited by Nathalie Pettorelli, Kamran Safi, Woody Turner and Stefan Dech

you may also like:

PhD defense by Thilo Erbertseder

PhD defense by Thilo Erbertseder

Thilo Erbertseder will defend his PhD thesis "Satellite-based analysis of NO2 air pollution: from global to urban aspect" on Wednesday 23rd of July at 3pm in John-Skilton Str. 4a, seminar room 1. All interested staff, students, family and friends are cordially invited...

upcoming PhD defense by Adomas Liepa

upcoming PhD defense by Adomas Liepa

Our PhD student Adomas Liepa will defend his Phd "Potential of Satellite Earth Observation in seasonal monitoring of complex agricultural environments of East Africa" on Thursday 24th of July at 11am. The defense will take place at John Skilton Str. 4a, seminarroom 1....

DLR supports Zeit Magazine with Land Surface Temperature data

DLR supports Zeit Magazine with Land Surface Temperature data

Our colleagues from DLR provided long-term Land Surface Temperature (LST) data for an interactive tool in the Zeit Magazine which was recently published online https://www.zeit.de/zeit-magazin/2025-06/stadtteile-grossstaedte-wohnen-deutschland-lebensqualitaet The tool...

Special Issue related to JURSE – Call for Papers

Special Issue related to JURSE – Call for Papers

In the course of the Joint Urban Remote Sensing Event (JURSE), which took place in Tunis, Tunisia, at the beginning of May this year, there is again a special issue related to JURSE and beyond. The Call for Papers has just been published in the IEEE Journal of...

EORC Staff and EAGLE Students at ESA Living Planet Symposium 2025

EORC Staff and EAGLE Students at ESA Living Planet Symposium 2025

This week, our EORC team and EAGLE MSc students are joining the global Earth observation community at the ESA Living Planet Symposium (LPS) 2025 — one of the most important gatherings for Earth system scientists, remote sensing experts, and space agencies worldwide....