Abstract
Conservation efforts often focus on umbrella species whose distributions overlap with many other flora and fauna. However, because biodiversity is affected by different threats that are spatially variable, focusing only on the geographic range overlap of species may not be sufficient in allocating the necessary actions needed to efficiently abate threats. We developed a problem‐based method for prioritizing conservation actions for umbrella species that maximizes the total number of flora and fauna benefiting from management while considering threats, actions, and costs. We tested our new method by assessing the performance of the Australian federal government's umbrella prioritization list, which identifies 73 umbrella species as priorities for conservation attention. Our results show that the federal government priority list benefits only 6% of all Australia's threatened terrestrial species. This could be increased to benefit nearly half (or 46%) of all threatened terrestrial species for the same budget of AU$550 million/year if more suitable umbrella species were chosen. This results in a 7‐fold increase in management efficiency. We believe nations around the world can markedly improve the selection of prioritized umbrella species for conservation action with this transparent, quantitative, and objective prioritization approach.
Highlights
Species extinction is one of the most significant environmental challenges humanity faces (Ceballos et al 2017); rates are up to 1000 times higher than what is considered natural (De Vos et al 2015)
The net benefit, defined as the total number of threatened flora and fauna expected to benefit under management, was 103 species (6% of all Australia’s terrestrial threatened species)
There is an emerging, critical role for prioritization approaches to be efficient and achieve conservation goals that maximize the number of species benefitting from management (Nicholson & Possingham 2006; Rodrigues & Brooks 2007)
Summary
Species extinction is one of the most significant environmental challenges humanity faces (Ceballos et al 2017); rates are up to 1000 times higher than what is considered natural (De Vos et al 2015) In response to this challenge, most countries have ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the 2020 Strategic Plan for Biodiversity (United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity 2010). Conservation agencies, and scientists use umbrella prioritization approaches to achieve conservation goals efficiently (e.g., Rowland et al 2006; Rodrigues & Brooks 2007; Caro & Girling 2010) This approach prioritizes flora and fauna based on their large habitat requirements (Wilcox 1984), thereby minimizing the need to target all species within a landscape by managing just 1 that encapsulates many others with overlapping habitat requirements (Noss 1990; Launer & Murphy 1994). There has been extensive research on umbrella species that defines the method (Caro & Girling 2010), validates umbrella species as an efficient conservation tool (e.g., Nekaris et al 2015; Maslo et al 2016; Kalinkat et al 2017), analyzes the effectiveness of specific umbrella species (e.g., Bifolchi & Lode 2005; Rowland et al 2006; Li & Pimm 2016), and alternative threat-based approaches (e.g., Lambeck 1997), it is still unknown how efficiency changes in an umbrella species approach when threats, actions, and costs are considered in a systematic assessment
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