Narrowly distributed taxa are disproportionately informative for conservation planning.

ABSTRACT: Biological atlas data can be used as inputs into conservation decision-making, yet atlases are sometimes infrequently updated, which can be problematic when the distribution of species is changing rapidly. Despite this, we have a poor understanding of strategies for efficiently updating biological atlas data. Using atlases of the distributions of 1630 threatened plant taxa, we quantitatively compared the informativeness of narrowly distributed and widespread taxa in identifying areas that meet taxon-specific conservation targets, and also measured the cost-efficiency of meeting those targets. We also explored the underlying mechanisms of the informativeness of narrowly distributed taxa. Overall, narrowly distributed taxa are far more informative than widespread taxa for identifying areas t

SUBMITTER: Akasaka M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8828766 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature