Spatial ecological networks: planning for sustainability in the long-term

Humans are producing complex and often undesirable social and ecological outcomes in many landscapes around the world. To sustain biodiversity and ecosystem services in fragmented landscapes conservation planning has turned to the identification and protection of large-scale spatial ecological networks (SEN). Now widely adopted, this approach typically focuses on static connectivity, and ignores the feedbacks between changes to the network's topology and the eco-evolutionary dynamics on the network. We review theory showing that diversity, stability, ecosystem functioning and evolutionary adaptation all vary nonlinearly with connectivity. Measuring and modelling an SEN's long-term dynamics is immensely challenging but necessary if our goal is sustainability. We show an example where the robustness of an SEN's ecological properties to node and link loss depends on the centrality of the nodes targeted. The design and protection of sustainable SENs requires scenarios of how landscape change affects network structure and the feedback this will have on dynamics. Once established, SEN must be monitored if their design is to be adapted to keep their dynamics within a safe and socially just operating space. When SEN are codesigned with a broad array of stakeholders and actors they can be a powerful means of creating a more positive relationship between people and nature.