A GIS-based policy support tool to determine national responsibilities and priorities for biodiversity conservation

ber of overlapping polygons. This leads to differences in weighting, especially when large coun- tries have relatively little overlap with focal and reference areas. The size of a country also plays a role when considering the number of species for which basic responsibility must be assumed. The larger the territory of a country, the greater the probability that it will include significant portions of the range of a species in the corresponding reference area—a species for which the country then bears basic responsibility. The NRA-Tool described here will allow the determination of national responsibility and conservation priorities across large geographic scales and across all species (and habitats) for which distribution data are available. With the NRA-Tool we are able to conduct global analy- ses and to inform global processes, such as IPBES assessments, about national responsibilities of each member state and to make suggestions on conservation priorities for different species. It can also be used to identify information gaps resulting from a lack of monitoring programs that target species for which countries have a “high” to “very high” degree of responsibility [72]. The results provided by the NRA-Tool, which are hierarchical lists, can be used to start capacity-building efforts in less surveyed regions and countries. The results can also be used in the various other ways outlined earlier [1]. With this information, policy and decision makers will be better equipped to assess when and how policy should be adapted, reinforced, or devel-

oped to fulfill the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Aichi targets. The maps and tables pro- duced with the NRA-Tool are visual supports for making decisions about international biodiversity conservation. Supporting information S1 File. NRA-tool user interface. (PDF) S2 File. An example for the calculations of the Polygon Count-Approach and the Polygon Area-Approach. (PDF) S3 File. List of species used in the illustration example. (ZIP) PLOS ONE GIS-based policy support tool to determine national responsibilities for biodiversity conservation PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243135 December 3, 2020 18 / 23

S4 File. Performance and possibilities for optimization. (PDF) S5 File. (ZIP) S1 Data. Example for the content of the output files (dBase) for the results based on the Polygon Count-Approach and the Polygon Area-Approach shown in Figs 8 and 9. (ODS) S2 Data. Comparison of results for countries having medium national responsibility for at least one out of 258 species studied. (ODS) Acknowledgments We would like to thank BirdLife International (http://www.birdlife.org) for provision of geo- graphical distributions of 258 bird species, The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ [44] for the provision of geographical distribution for 4 shrew species, ESRI [43] for the publicly avail- able continental borders, EuroGeographics [45] for publicly available data of administrative borders, and Natural Earth [46] for the background map. We thank the two anonymous reviewers, whose comments / suggestions have contributed significantly to the improvement and clarification of this manuscript, and Alessandra Moyer for linguistic proofreading. Author Contributions Conceptualization: Yu-Pin Lin, Dirk S. Schmeller. Data curation: Yu-Pin Lin, Tzung-Su Ding, Yung Chieh Wang, Wan-Yu Lien, Reinhard A. Klenke. Formal analysis: Yu-Pin Lin, Tzung-Su Ding, Yung Chieh Wang, Wan-Yu Lien. Funding acquisition: Yu-Pin Lin, Klaus Henle. Methodology: Yu-Pin Lin, Dirk S. Schmeller, Tzung-Su Ding, Klaus Henle, Reinhard A. Klenke. Project administration: Yu-Pin Lin, Klaus Henle, Reinhard A. Klenke. Resources: Yu-Pin Lin, Reinhard A. Klenke. Software: Yu-Pin Lin, Reinhard A. Klenke.

Supervision: Yu-Pin Lin, Dirk S. Schmeller, Tzung-Su Ding. Validation: Dirk S. Schmeller, Yung Chieh Wang, Reinhard A. Klenke. Visualization: Yu-Pin Lin, Wan-Yu Lien, Reinhard A. Klenke. Writing – original draft: Yu-Pin Lin, Dirk S. Schmeller, Reinhard A. Klenke. Writing – review & editing: Klaus Henle, Reinhard A. Klenke. References 1. Schmeller DS, Evans D, Lin Y-P, Henle K. The national responsibility approach to setting conservation priorities—recommendations for its use. Journal for Nature Conservation 2014; 22: 349–57. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.jnc.2014.03.002 PLOS ONE GIS-based policy support tool to determine national responsibilities for biodiversity conservation PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243135 December 3, 2020 19 / 23

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