Increasing taxonomic diversity and spatial resolution clarifies opportunities for protecting US imperiled species.

ABSTRACT: Continental- and regional-scale assessments of gaps in protected area networks typically use relatively coarse range maps for well documented species groups, creating uncertainty about the fate of unexamined biodiversity and providing insufficient guidance for land managers. By building habitat suitability models for a taxonomically diverse group of 2216 imperiled plants and animals, we revealed comprehensive and detailed protection opportunities in the conterminous United States. Summing protection-weighted range-size rarity (PWRSR, the product of the percent of modeled habitat outside of protected areas and the inverse of modeled habitat extent) uncovered novel patterns of biodiversity importance. Concentrations of unprotected imperiled species in places such as the northern Sierra Nevad

SUBMITTER: Hamilton H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9286056 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature