We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Áreas protegidas de Costa Rica: Fragmentación, tamaño y forma.
- Authors
Hernández, Iván Sandoval; Chinchilla, Maikol Castillo
- Abstract
Reduction on habitat size and fragmentation has been considered to be one of the principal reasons of extinction of the species. As a strategy to diminish the fragmentation effects in Costa Rica there were created Protected Areas (PA), as a mitigation measure of fragmentation processes that the country suffered between the 60s and 80s. Nowadays, the bordering landscape to the PA is shaped by atrophic matrix, analogous to oceans, who surround the discontinuous "isolated protected fragments ", analogous to islands, which generates that the PA have different shapes and sizes. Has been admitted that to major habitat size it is possible to support a major temporary-space heterogeneity that favours the existence of a high diversity. We made an analysis of the protected areas database from the Digital Atlas of Costa Rica and we calculated the size, perimeter, the Mean Nearest Neighbor Distance, area and the Euclidean shape indexes of the Costa Rica PA. We found PA present variable sizes (1331 Ha in the Natural Absolute Reservations, up to 621039 Ha in National Parks). The Shape index, varied from 1 in areas with geometric shapes (Natural Absolute Reservations), up to 20 (at Indigenous Reservations with more complex shapes). The fractal dimension presents low values (1.18 to 1.28), which indicate that PA tends to geometric and non fractal Shapes. The perimetral index presented values between 3 and 33, which indicates the PA have compact forms, with a high exposition of the matrix effects. The mean nearest neighbor between PA was 17161 meters. With the exception of some national parks, few protected areas have large sizes, which are required for the maintenance of natural processes and dynamic landscapes with some degree of fragmentation.
- Subjects
COSTA Rica; HABITATS; BIOLOGICAL extinction; PROTECTED areas; NATIONAL parks &; reserves
- Publication
Metodos en Ecologia y Sistematica, 2011, Vol 6, Issue 1/2, p21
- ISSN
1659-2182
- Publication type
Article