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Presence–Persistence–Performance

Planning diagnostics

A three-stage diagnostic framework for evaluating what a landscape enables an organism or population to achieve. Presence asks whether the organism occurs in or uses the landscape; persistence asks whether the population can remain there through time; performance asks whether the organism or population achieves the specified biological or ecological outcome, including ecological effectiveness where relevant. The sequence synthesizes established concepts of occurrence, population viability, species requirements, and ecological effectiveness into a progressively more demanding planning diagnostic.

Shaffer, M. L. (1981). Minimum population sizes for species conservation. BioScience, 31(2), 131–134. Sanderson, E. W., Redford, K. H., Vedder, A., Coppolillo, P. B., & Ward, S. E. (2002). A conceptual model for conservation planning based on landscape species requirements. Landscape and Urban Planning, 58(1), 41–56. Soulé, M. E., Estes, J. A., Berger, J., & Martínez del Río, C. (2003). Ecological effectiveness: Conservation goals for interactive species. Conservation Biology, 17(5), 1238–1250.