Integrating biodiversity and ecosystem services to identify ecological priorities for an ecologically fragile city in China

A high rate of urbanization comes with high environmental costs, leading to reductions in biodiversity and ecosystem services (BES). How to maximize the efficiency and representation of BES in cities is of utmost urgency. However, in the process of spatial prioritization identification, it remains unclear whether a preference for ecosystem services (ES) promotes or detracts from biodiversity. In this study, a Marxan-based spatial conservation prioritization framework is provided to achieve a win-win situation for ES provision and biodiversity protection. Using Hohhot city, China as a study case, it sets up different weighting scenarios with species and five ES to determine the optimal protected area network for each possible combination. At the same time, it tests the conservation costs, protected features, and spatial overlap of different scenarios with existing protected areas to quantify their conservation efficiency. We found that (1) closed deciduous broadleaved forests, closed evergreen needle-leaved forests, and deciduous shrublands could support both high biodiversity and abundant ES at altitudes of 1600-2000 m. (2) Although a positive association is found between ES and biodiversity, there is some spatial variation. The geographical overlap rate with biodiversity prioritization was only 29.72% when only ES were considered. (3) Conservation of ecological hotspots by increasing the weight of ES can reduce conservation expenses by 0.69%-20.32% compared to meeting solely biodiversity targets. Our analyses highlight the need for an appropriate weighting of ES in decisions seeking to identify protected areas. This study provides methodological support for the integration of ES and biodiversity, facilitating more comprehensive conservation planning decisions.

Automated summary

A high rate of urbanization leads to reductions in biodiversity and ecosystem services (BES). This study provides a spatial conservation prioritization framework to achieve a win-win situation for BES provision and biodiversity protection. Using Hohhot city, China as a study case, different weighting scenarios with species and five ecosystem services were set up to determine the optimal protected area network. The study highlights the need for an appropriate weighting of ecosystem services in decisions seeking to identify protected areas.