Representativeness of national parks in protecting freshwater biodiversity: a case of Brazilian savanna

Abstract

The establishment of national parks are an important and often‐used tool to protect biodiversity. However, when considering freshwater ecosystems, many of these areas in Brazil are habitat mosaics in which a small part of the ecosystem is protected and strongly influenced by the surrounding environment. By assessing the fish fauna and their diversity patterns in five national parks (NPs) within the Brazilian savanna, we discuss whether the establishment of new NPs or the expansion of their current conservation limits would potentially conserve additional species. We selected all national parks within the third largest drainage area in Brazil. To sample fish communities, we explored 60 streams through a standardised field protocol. We also simulated the potential impact of the enlargement or implementation of a new national park. Our results reinforce the importance of national parks and their surrounding areas to preserve fish species. The enlargement of national parks would result in an increase of potentially protected species; however, the same achievement would be obtained if their buffer zones were effectively managed and protected. We recommend an alternative conservation approach to increase protection of tropical savanna fish biodiversity, especially in developing countries such as Brazil with scarce financial resources available for management, monitoring and creation of protected areas.