Table 1.
Protected areas of Costa Rica classified by IUCN categories, its corresponding national category, number of areas in each category and area covered for effectiveness assessment for mammal conservation.
Table 2.
Endemic and threatened species representativeness and range protected in the protected areas system of Costa Rica.
Fig 1.
Chronology of protected areas establishment and number of mammal species represented in protected areas (red line), and mean percentage species ranges within protected areas (black line ± SE) in Costa Rica.
Inset maps denote locations of protected areas for each major increase in number of species protected in a) 1960, b) 1970, c) 1975 and d) 2009 as also indicated in the graph.
Fig 2.
Frequency distribution of mammal species represented in all protected areas of Costa Rica.
Note that most species were represented in at least 1 protected area and 48% of all species (100 species) were represented in more than 100 protected areas.
Fig 3.
Number of mammal species by protected area and category in Costa Rica.
The color scale at the top right indicates the number of species on each protected area. Protected areas with diagonal lines are National Parks. The inset figure indicates the percentage of mammal species in each protected area category (National Parks (NP), Wildlife Refuges (WR), Protected Zones (PZ), Forest Reserves (FR), Biological Reserves (BR), National Wetlands (NW) and Natural Absolute Reserves (NAR)).
Fig 4.
Complementarity of protected areas for representing mammal species richness in Costa Rica.
a) Cluster analyses of species diversity using the Jaccard index between protected area categories (National parks (NP), Wildlife Refuges (WR), Forest Reserves (FR), Protected Zones (PZ), National Wetlands (NW) and Biological Reserves (BR)) and b) cumulative number of species protected.
Fig 5.
Percentage (±SE) of mammal species ranges within protected areas in Costa Rica.
Mean percentage species ranges protected overall and in National Parks (NP), Wildlife Refuges (WR), Forest Reserves (FR), Protected Zones (PZ), Biological Reserves (BR), National Wetlands (NW) and National Absolute Reserves (NAR).
Fig 6.
a) Mammal species range and percentage of each species range protected indicating a priori conservations targets (blue line) and b) percentage (±SE) of mammal species ranges protected in Costa Rica based on IUCN Red List of Threatened Species category (LC = Least Concern, NT = Near Threatened, DD = Data Deficient, VU = Vulnerable and EN = Endangered).
Species located below the a priori target (see Methods) were identified as underprotected.
Fig 7.
Mammal species richness within 83 km2 grid cells in Costa Rica and protected areas (dashed polygons).
a) Total species richness; b) number of threatened (VU, EN, CR and DD) species in cells not covered by protected areas; c) number of underprotected species (according to a priori targets; see Methods) in cells not covered by protected areas, and; d) number of cells not protected (TNP), cells in all protected areas (TPA), and cells on each protected area category (National Parks (NP), Wildlife Refuges (WR), Forest Reserves (FR), Protected Zones (PZ), National Wetlands (NW) and Biological Reserves (BR)). Secondary Y axis indicates the mean (blue line + SD), minimum (triangles) and maximum (x) number of species protected by cell in each category.