Ranking of Important Protected Areas in BC based on importance as gene conservation reserves in the zone

In this UBC forestry  document , we have extracted the Ecological reserves from the list of Protected Forest Areas in BC . The complete listing is at:

http://www.genetics.forestry.ubc.ca/cfcg/proj_cataloguing/status_report/r_pa_rank_bwbs.html

BWBS zone

Important Protected Areas

Protected Areas are ranked based on their importance as gene conservation reserves in the zone and in BC. Ranking is based on populations sizes of 10 and 5 ha cumulative cover.

For information on methods see notes or Hamann, A., Smets, P., Aitken, S. N. and Yanchuk, A. D. 2005. An ecogeographic framework for in situ conservation of forest trees in British Columbia. Can. J. For. Res. 35:2553-2561.

PA ranking

http://www.genetics.forestry.ubc.ca/cfcg/proj_cataloguing/status_report/r_pa_rank_bwbs.html

http://www.genetics.forestry.ubc.ca/cfcg/proj_cataloguing/status_report/pa_rank_notes.html

Species population size estimates are from the GIS bases analysis done by Hamann et. al 2005. The Protected Area (PA) data set used was from 2002. It included approximately 800 permanent PAs, national parks, ecological reserves, provincial parks, recreation areas, all of which are free from mining, logging, oil or gas extraction, urban development and agriculture (excluding grazing). The species frequency data contains % cover values (from the BC Ministry of Forests botanical inventory database of 34,000 sample plots) for each BEC variant. Species cumulative cover (CC) estimates (a measure of population size) were calculated for each BEC variant portion of a PA and then tallied. PA importance (I) is calculated using a modified species evenness index (e.g. Shannon-index) which takes into account the number of species protected (S) and the redundancy in protection (ri):

where S is the total number of species protected in the zone at a set threshold population size, ri is the redundancy value for species i, and Ni is the number of PAs in the zone containing species i at the set threshold population size. PA importance was calculated for a threshold population size of 10 ha and 5 ha CC. It has been calculated that for common commercial conifers, 10 ha of CC will likely contain a census population size larger than 5,000 breeding individuals (Hamann et. al. 2004).

PA importance was calculated on the zone and provincial level. PAs were then ranked by their importance values. Protected Areas ranked highest are those which contain populuations of trees not protected elsewhere in the particular zone or in BC.

For more information see Hamann, A., Smets, P., Aitken, S. N. and Yanchuk, A. D. 2005. An ecogeographic framework for in situ conservation of forest trees in British Columbia. Can. J. For. Res. 35:2553-2561.

kgkguguguoi