Abstract Large protected areas have been created in Brazilian Amazon intending to safeguard as much of its biodiversity as possible. Despite these intentions, such megareserves were created predominantly focusing on terrestrial organisms and ecosystems. Here, we assessed the ability of the current Brazilian Amazon protected areas network to efficiently safeguard its stream-dwelling fish fauna. Ecological niche models were built for 138 stream fish species using MaxEnt software. We performed a gap analysis and spatial prioritization under three different Amazon protected areas scenarios: (1) strictly protected areas (SPAs) only; (2) SPA plus sustainable use areas (SPA + SUA); and (3) SPA + SUA plus indigenous territories (SPA + SUA + IT). The species were classified according to their distribution range size and required representation targets. Widespread species usually had lower area under the curve (AUC) and true skill statistics (TSS) values, which would be expected for large and heterogeneous areas such as the Amazon. Only partial gap species were found, with 20% to 90% of required representation targets included in PAs, which was not enough for a complete protection. Most of the officially protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon do not correspond to areas with high direct conservation values for stream fishes, once the priority areas for these species conservation were outside the PAs, leaving a high portion of the regional vertebrate fauna inadequately protected. We conclude that fishes and other freshwater organisms and habitats should be explicitly included during systematic conservation planning in order to thoroughly protect the Brazilian Amazon biodiversity.

中文翻译：

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亚马逊保护区及其保护溪流鱼类群落的能力

摘要 在巴西亚马逊地区建立了大型保护区，旨在尽可能多地保护其生物多样性。尽管有这些意图，此类大型保护区的创建主要侧重于陆地生物和生态系统。在这里，我们评估了当前巴西亚马逊保护区网络有效保护其溪流鱼类群落的能力。使用 MaxEnt 软件为 138 种河流鱼类建立了生态位模型。我们在三种不同的亚马逊保护区情景下进行了差距分析和空间优先排序：(1) 仅限严格保护区 (SPA)；（2）SPA+可持续利用区（SPA+SUA）；(3) SPA + SUA 加上土著领地（SPA + SUA + IT）。这些物种根据其分布范围大小和所需的代表性目标进行分类。广泛分布的物种通常具有较低的曲线下面积 (AUC) 和真实技能统计 (TSS) 值，这对于大型和异质区域（例如亚马逊）来说是预期的。仅发现了部分间隙物种，PA 中包含了 20% 至 90% 的所需代表性目标，这不足以实现完整保护。巴西亚马逊地区的大多数官方保护区并不对应于对河流鱼类具有高直接保护价值的区域，一旦这些物种保护的优先区域在保护区之外，就会导致大部分区域脊椎动物群得不到充分保护。我们的结论是，为了彻底保护巴西亚马逊地区的生物多样性，系统保护规划中应明确包括鱼类和其他淡水生物和栖息地。