Efficient and effective allocation of conservation efforts is fundamental concept to minimize biodiversity loss. Systematic conservation planning (SCP) is a research framework that seeks spatial prioritization for biodiversity conservation, and has been rapidly developed in the past 20 years. Macroecology seeks to understand large-scale biodiversity patterns and underlying processes. From a view point of long-term persistence of biodiversity, capturing evolutionary and ecological processes within protected areas network is a critical aspect in conservation plans. Therefore, linking two disciplines of SCP and macroecology is a new challenge. Although many researchers tackle these research issues, in Japan ecological studies including conservation mainly stand on reductionistic/individualistic views that focus on particular landscape or certain species/population at relatively small scale, and the holistic approaches considering large scale patterns and processes are minor.
In this symposium, we introduce two macroecological studies that focus on dynamics of biodiversity patterns and methodology to detect potential processes in species assembly, and two SCP studies that focus on achieving global conservation targets under socio-economic constraints. Then, we evaluate how macroecological patterns are captured in SCP-derived priority areas. Finally, we discuss how to bridge these research fields and to develop effective biodiversity conservation in East Asia.