Abstract
In the face of accelerating species extinctions, map-based prioritization systems are increasingly useful to decide where to pursue conservation action most effectively. However, a number of seemingly inconsistent schemes have emerged, mostly focussing on endemism. Here we use global vertebrate distributions in terrestrial ecoregions to evaluate how continuous and categorical ranking schemes target and accumulate endangered taxa within the IUCN Red List, Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE), and EDGE of Existence programme. We employed total, endemic and threatened species richness and an estimator for richness-adjusted endemism as metrics in continuous prioritization, and WWF's Global200 and Conservation International's (CI) Hotspots in categorical prioritization. Our results demonstrate that all metrics target endangerment more efficiently than by chance, but each selects unique sets of top-ranking ecoregions, which overlap only partially, and include different sets of threatened species. Using the top 100 ecoregions as defined by continuous prioritization metrics, we develop an inclusive map for global vertebrate conservation that incorporates important areas for endemism, richness, and threat. Finally, we assess human footprint and protection levels within these areas to reveal that endemism sites are more impacted but have more protection, in contrast to high richness and threat ones. Given such contrasts, major efforts to protect global biodiversity must involve complementary conservation approaches in areas of unique species as well as those with highest diversity and threat.
Highlights
All assessed prioritization schemes perform well in the accumulation of threatened species compared to random ecoregion selection, but major differences emerge between schemes
The number of species of any threat class rises more rapidly when including increasing numbers of high-priority ecoregions using endemism and threat as prioritization metrics than for hendemism and richness
This applied to h -endemism only for Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE) (Figure 1A), whereas it required 100 ecoregions for EDGE (Figure 1B), 71 for CR (Figure 1C) and 69 for EN (Figure 1D) to exceed random ecoregion selection
Summary
The greatest challenges for priority-setting are the non-congruence of important areas defined by different indicator (surrogate) taxa and lack of correspondence of hotspots of species richness, endemism, and extinction threat [14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22]. Their full utility for priority setting remains unevaluated, especially the capture of threatened species by prioritization schemes other than endemism [10]. We close this gap by investigating how prioritizing areas by species richness, endemism and threat target and accumulate different numbers of threatened taxa.
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