Predicting the habitat type distribution to assess the representativeness of the Natura 2000 network

The Nature 2000 sites based on the Habitats Directive are considered the cornerstone of European Union nature conservation policy. They are the main tools that European nations have to conserve biodiversity across Europe. Therefore, assessing the effectiveness of the Nature 2000 network is a demanding topic in conservation biology. As defined in the Annex I of the Habitat Directive, the site selection is based on habitats, therefore as accurate information as possible about the extent and distribution of habitats is needed. Several scientific efforts has been made on this direction, mainly for large scale habitat monitoring through traditional and remote sensing approaches. However large scale species assessment suffer of the lack of standard procedures and not homogeneous data. Here the ICP Forests LI dataset, the first harmonized assessment of European biodiversity on representative bases is used as baseline information to predict the extent and distribution of habitats types. This data set includes about 3200 plots sampled in European forests by using a probabilistic sampling, therefore represents an opportunity to achieve a representative picture of the EU forest habitat types. Predictive models of habitat types are developed combining information of the vegetation relevés with environmental predictors. As a result, maps representing European habitat types distribution are obtained. In order to assess the appropriateness of the Natura 2000 sites, the degree of spatial overlap between them and the distribution map of habitat types is calculated.