Phd in ENVIRONMENTAL AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY

Thesis title: Systematic detection of Key Biodiversity Areas: testing insects and herpetofauna as indicators

Global change is affecting biodiversity worldwide, bringing many species on the brink of extinction. In order to decelerate this drammatic process,it is necessary to rely on strong methodologies that are able to maximize the efficiency of conservation efforts. The Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA) approach was developed to identify sites which, if preserved, can ensure the persistence of Earth's biodiversity in the coming years. It relies on the use of standardized threshold-based criteria that allow to evaluate a site based on multiple levels of biodiversity. However, so far KBAs have been mapped for a limited number of species, mainly birds and plants. Moreover, a method to systematically apply the KBA criteria to larga numbers of species is not available. Such method would significantly accelerate the KBA identification process and allow testing of the KBA criteria on taxa that have rarely been used as KBA indicators, ultimately, revealing advantages and limits of the KBA approach. We developed a methodology to systematically apply KBA criteria on an arbitrary number of species within a target geographic region. We tested the methodology on Italian amphibians, reptiles and bumblebees. Different factors affected the outcome of our large scale KBA assessments, such as planning unit size, degree of species endemism and species range size. A large portion of the KBAs detected in this thesis is located out of protected land in Italy. Further, the Italian KBA network showed a tendecy to expand as more species were assessed, providing evidence that KBAs may be more species specific than previously though. Finally, we make important conseiderations on the KBA approach and its limits when insect species are introduced as indicators and provide suggestions to improve KBA assessments.