The effectiveness of area protection to capture coastal bird richness and occurrence in the Swedish archipelago

Protected areas are a key component in biodiversity conservation strategies, but evaluations of how effective they are in capturing species diversity is lacking for many ecosystems. We compared different protection types (animal sanctuaries, nature reserves and unprotected areas) using data on species richness and occurrence of coastal breeding bird species in a large archipelago in the Baltic Sea. Data were from extensive inventories based on a...