Abstract

One of the most important issues in biodiversity conservation is an exploration of the relationships among protected areas, land-use changes and biodiversity, so we aimed to assess the performance of the Natura 2000 network (N2000) in representing the bat conservation hotspots in peninsular Spain and the Balearic Islands and to compare the rates of land-use changes within these hotspots with those observed throughout the rest of the study area. First, we applied a Combined Index that integrates various biodiversity metrics (species richness, rarity and vulnerability) to identify hotspots, and once they were identified, we used null models to assess the performance of N2000 in representing them. Finally, also using null models, we tested whether the changes in land use (“anthropization” or “naturalization”) within the hotspots occurred at a significantly higher or lower frequency than in the rest of the study area; for this, we considered two temporal windows (1980–2006 and 2006–2012) corresponding with periods before and after the official designation of the N2000 sites. Our results show that bat hotspots are effectively represented in the Iberian N2000, but although land-use changes were generally higher in Spain before 2006, hotspots have not experienced lower rates of change compared to the remainder of the territory (regardless of the period under consideration). This suggests low effectiveness of the Iberian N2000 in preventing land-use change in bat hotspots, so to preserve the Iberian bat fauna, we encourage the urgent implementation of management plans to avoid intensive changes in land use both inside and around bat hotspots.