Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) R package, KBAscope, application to Greece

Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) represent the largest global network of
sites critical to the persistence of biodiversity, which have been
identified against standardised quantitative criteria. Sites that hold
very high biodiversity value or potential are given specific attention on
site-based conservation targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global
Biodiversity Framework (GBF), and KBAs are already used in indicators for
the GBF and the Sustainable Development Goals. However, most of the
species that trigger KBA status are birds and to maximise benefits for
biodiversity under the actions taken to fulfil the GBF, countries need to
update their KBAs to represent important sites across multiple taxa. Here
we introduce KBAscope, an R package to identify potential KBAs using
multiple taxonomic groups. KBAscope provides flexible, user-friendly
functions to edit species data (population, range maps, area of occupancy,
area of habitat and localities); apply KBA criteria; and generate outputs
to support the delineation and validation of KBAs. The details of the
analysis - such as the spatial units tested or the KBA criteria applied -
can be decided according to the scope of the analysis. We demonstrate the
functionality of KBAscope by using it to identify potential KBAs in Greece
based on multiple terrestrial taxonomic groups and four sizes of grid
cells (4 km2, 25 km2, 100 km2, 225 km2).