Social network analysis and the implications for Pontocaspian biodiversity conservation in Romania and Ukraine: A comparative study

‘Political constraints’ (mentioned 6 times) and ‘institutional turnover’ (mentioned 3 times) were reported only in Romania and not in Ukraine. Continuous institutional rearrangements were found to complicate firstly the establishment and secondly the maintenance of relation- ships in Romania (S2 Table; theme ‘institutional turnover’), resulting in low network density (Table 2). For example, the Ministry of Environment reported an absence of relationship with DDA (Fig 2), and described the situation as follows: “DDA used to be under our structure until recently, but they are now coordinated by the government and we do not know how the new dialog will be because we are currently in a process of rearrangements”. Institutional turn- over also resulted in many unconfirmed relations. For example, out of 7 outgoing ties from the Marine Biological Station of Agigea (AZS) 5 were not confirmed (S1 Dataset) as AZS was still deemed to be part of the University of Iasi and not yet recognized as an independent organiza- tion by many of the stakeholders. This finding corroborates an earlier study which suggested that continuous institutional reforms of the public sector is a result of adjustments to the EU institutional structures which does not always have positive outcomes in Romania [15]. According to the same study, however, continued reforms of public sector are necessary to ensure access to national funds for scientific research [15]. Therefore, institutional turnover may be expected to persist in the coming years in Romania.

Unlike in Ukraine, the involvement of governmental organizations in the studied network was limited by bureaucratic barriers (S2 Table; theme ‘political constraints’), which resulted in few reciprocated ties between governance actors and other stakeholder categories (Table 2). Lack of reciprocated communication (governmental stakeholders receiving information from multiple sources but not sharing back to the network) is indicative of a strong hierarchy in conservation governance [63]. According to literature, stakeholder engagement in conserva- tion planning is often interpreted by the governmental organizations in Romania as intersec- toral cooperation and engagement, which results in seeking collaboration with other governmental organizations and international actors rather than in collaboration with local organizations and NGOs, resulting in hierarchical governance systems [16, 64, 65]. However, the theme ‘legal limitations’ which in Ukraine mostly referred to contradicting national laws and uncoordinated actions of regional administrations [17], was not mentioned in Romania, indicating higher consistency in conservation policies in Romania. In both countries most of the insufficient relationships were represented by strong links, suggesting that frequent inter- actions were not a guarantee for effective collaboration (see S2 Table). Stakeholder centrality and brokerage In Romania five central stakeholders were identified based on their degree centrality scores (Table 3), compared to six in Ukraine [17]. In both networks three out of nine academic insti-

tutions had a degree centrality score higher than or equal to the third quartile threshold value (�11 in Romania and �20 in Ukraine), indicating high involvement of these organizations in the exchange of relevant information. Unlike in Ukraine, where the major decision-making organization (Ministry of Ecology) was the most central stakeholder, in Romania, the analo- gous institution (Ministry of Environment) was not actively involved in the network. Instead, the Local Environmental Protection Agency in Constanta (LAC) was the central governmental institution with high degree centrality score. The Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve Authority (DDA) in Romania and the Danube Biosphere Reserve Administration (DBR) in Ukraine were both active in stakeholder networks with high degree centrality scores. Nongovernmental organizations had few connections in both countries. All the central stakeholders in Ukraine and Romania had more strong than weak connections. PLOS ONE Social network analysis and the implications for Pontocaspian biodiversity conservation in Romania and Ukraine PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0221833 October 23, 2020 11 / 20