Nature Reserves in Tropics: Desirable vs. Undesirable Features

Setting up nature reserves effectively in areas like the tropics requires careful planning to ensure the long-term survival of species. Various factors influence the success of a reserve, including its size, shape, location, and connectivity to other protected areas.

Analyzing Reserve Design Principles

Let's look at the options provided and understand their implications for nature reserve design:

• Reserves linked by corridors: Connecting reserves with corridors allows for the movement of animals and plants between them. This helps maintain genetic diversity, allows species to adapt to changing conditions, and can rescue populations facing local extinction. This is generally considered a desirable feature.
• Reserves surrounded by a buffer zone of same ecosystem: A buffer zone helps protect the core reserve area from external disturbances like pollution, development, or unsustainable resource extraction. Using the same ecosystem type in the buffer can help reduce habitat fragmentation and provide additional habitat for some species. This is generally considered a desirable feature.
• High edge-to-area ratio of the reserve: The edge of a reserve is the boundary where the protected habitat meets the surrounding altered landscape. Edges often experience different environmental conditions (light, temperature, wind) and are more exposed to invasive species, predators, and human activities (like poaching or habitat encroachment) compared to the interior (core) of the reserve. A high edge-to-area ratio means a larger proportion of the reserve is subject to these 'edge effects', which can negatively impact species that require stable interior habitat. This is generally considered an undesirable feature.
• Circular shaped reserve: For a given area, a circular shape has the smallest perimeter and thus the lowest edge-to-area ratio compared to other shapes like long rectangles or irregular shapes. Minimizing the edge-to-area ratio is desirable as it maximizes the amount of interior habitat less affected by edge effects.

Identifying the Undesirable Option

Based on these principles, a high edge-to-area ratio of the reserve is the feature that is NOT desirable when setting up nature reserves, particularly in biodiversity-rich tropical regions where edge effects can be significant.