The overlooked conservation values of saline lakes

Abstract

Saline lakes are hypersensitive to changes in their water balance and therefore show amplified responses to climatic and land-use changes in their catchment. Despite often dramatic ecological impacts, saline lakes rank low on policy agendas as they are assumed to support few ecosystem services and low levels of biodiversity. Here, we challenge this view and evaluate ecosystem services and threatened species in 85 saline lakes distributed across the globe. We show that saline lakes support, additionally to threatened aquatic biota, a diverse range of red-listed terrestrial species that contribute together with a large beta diversity to their conservation value. Further, our results highlight that saline lakes provide a number of culturally and economically important ecosystem services but several of them are 'hidden' and difficult to quantify. We conclude our analysis with best-practice recommendations for sustainable management of saline lakes. Their local adaptation and implementation will be key for safeguarding biodiversity and ecosystem services of these valuable and highly sensitive ecosystems.