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RESEARCH PRODUCT

The cost-effectiveness of using raptor nest sites to identify areas with high species richness of other taxa

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Abstract Given the limited resources available for conservation, it is important that the areas to preserve are selected in a cost effective manner. However, the cost effectiveness of the surrogate species strategy (the use of information on one or more species to identify areas of value for other species for which there is no, or more limited, available information) has seldom been evaluated. In this study, we investigate the opportunity cost of setting aside breeding sites of two forest raptor species (the surrogate species) by evaluating their individual and combined contribution to preserve diversity of polypores (wood-decaying fungi) and birds against the contributions of previously established nature reserves. We use numeric optimization models to compare different reserve selection strategies. Site selection based on nest sites of the dominant raptor species was more cost-effective than strategies using sites of the subordinate species or those processes previously used to select nature reserves in Finland. The inclusion of both raptor species in the reserve selection model further improved its performance relative to other approaches. This indicates that the means by which Finnish reserves are selected could be enhanced by including the breeding sites of these, and maybe other species, among the criteria used to select reserves in the future. These results show that information on charismatic and well-surveyed species could be a cost-efficient add-on to help enhance conservation endeavours. Where there is inter-specific competition for biodiverse sites, and using multiple species is costly, basing reserve selection primarily on breeding sites of a dominant species may be the best strategy. However, further work is required to establish the extent to which dominant species are typically better indicators of conservation relevance.