Design of reserve networks and the persistence of biodiversity

Sophisticated computational methods have been developed to help us to ident ify sets of nature reserves that maximize the representation of regional di versity, but, until recently, the methods have not dealt explicitly and dir ectly with the main goal of reserve networks, that of the tong-term mainten ance of biodiversity. Furthermore,the successful application of current met hods requires reliable information about species distributions, which is no t always available. Recent results show that data quality, as well as the c hoice of surrogates for biodiversity. could he critical for successful rese rve design. Because of these problems and a lack of communication between s cientists and managers, the impact of computational site-selection tools in applied conservation planning has been minimal.