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Island biogeography theory posits that species richness increases with island size and decreases with isolation. This logic underpins much conservation policy and regulation, with preference given to conserving large, highly connected areas, and relative ambivalence shown toward protecting small, isolated habitat patches. We undertook a global synthesis of the relationship between the conservation value of habitat patches and their size and isolation, based on 31 systematic conservation planning studies across four continents. We found that small, isolated patches are inordinately important for biodiversity conservation. Our results provide a powerful argument for redressing the neglect of small, isolated habitat patches, for urgently prioritizing their restoration, and for avoiding simplistic application of island biogeography theory in conservation decisions.

Danaher and Nyholm (Philosophy & Technology 37:106, 2024) explore whether avatar technology makes humans less valuable by making them less scarce. They identify two forms of human scarcity, intrinstic scarcity and instrumental scarcity, and explore how each is impacted by avatar representation. Here I argue that avatars cannot make humans less scarce but that, nevertheless, the use of avatar technology can undermine the value of human uniqueness.

Systematic conservation planning and Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) are the two most widely used approaches for identifying important sites for biodiversity. However, there is limited advice for conservation policy makers and practitioners on when and how they should be combined. Here we provide such guidance, using insights from the recently developed Global Standard for the Identification of KBAs and the language of decision science to review and clarify their similarities and differences. We argue the two approaches are broadly similar, with both setting transparent environmental objectives and specifying actions. There is however greater contrast in the data used and actions involved, as the KBA approach uses biodiversity data alone and identifies sites for monitoring and vigilance actions at a minimum, whereas systematic conservation planning combines biodiversity and implementation‐relevant data to guide management actions. This difference means there is much scope for combining approaches, so conservation planners should use KBA data in their analyses, setting context‐specific targets for each KBA type, and planners and donors should use systematic conservation planning techniques when prioritizing between KBAs for management action. In doing so, they will benefit conservation policy, practice and research by building on the collaborations formed through the KBA Standard's development.

The Millennium Seed Bank (MSB) Partnership, developed and managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew), conserves propagules primarily from orthodox seed-bearing wild vascular plants. It is the largest ex situ conservation programme in the world, currently involving 96 countries and territories. Where possible, seeds are collected and conserved in the country of origin with duplicates being sent to RBG Kew’s MSB for storage. In this paper we assess the conservation value of the germplasm stored at the MSB using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The MSB holdings represent a high quality, rich biological resource. Substantial and unique taxonomic diversity exists amongst the collections, representing 365 families, 5813 genera, 36,975 species and 39,669 taxa conserved. The collections cover a wide geographic range, originating from 189 countries and territories, representing all nine bio-geographic regions and all 35 biodiversity hotspots. The collections possess significant natural capital and population value: 32% of taxa, representing 49% of collections, have at least one identified use to humans; and 74% of taxa, representing 78% of collections, are either endemic, endangered (nationally or globally) and/or have an economic, ecological, social, cultural or scientific value. While 10% of taxa, representing > 8% of collections, are either extinct, rare or vulnerable to extinction at the global and/or national level, 20% of taxa, representing 13% collections, are endemic at the country or territory scale. Over the 17-year period since 2000 at least 11,182 seed samples, representing 12% of taxa and 8% of collections, have been distributed globally for conservation, research, education and display. This analysis highlighted collection gaps in MSB holdings in relation to their geographic representativeness, the taxonomic diversity of large families and genera of angiosperms, and coverage of threatened taxa. Further analysis across the entire MSB Partnership is required to underpin future collection activities and maximize the usefulness of collections.

Protected areas are the single most important conservation tool. The global protected-area network has grown substantially in recent decades, now occupying 11.5% of Earth's land surface, but such growth has not been strategically aimed at maximizing the coverage of global biodiversity. In a previous study, we demonstrated that the global network is far from complete, even for the representation of terrestrial vertebrate species. Here we present a first attempt to provide a global framework for the next step of strategically expanding the network to cover mammals, amphibians, freshwater turtles and tortoises, and globally threatened birds. We identify unprotected areas of the world that have remarkably high conservation value (irreplaceability) and are under serious threat. These areas concentrate overwhelmingly in tropical and subtropical moist forests, particularly on tropical mountains and islands. The expansion of the global protected-area network in these regions is urgently needed to prevent the loss of unique biodiversity.

Aim Effective policymaking for biological conservation requires the identification and ranking of the most important areas for protection or management. One of the most frequently used systems for selecting priority areas is the Key Biodiversity Areas (hereafter KBAs), developed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). However, KBAs cannot be used to rank areas, potentially limiting their use when limited funding is available. To tackle this shortcoming and facilitate spatial prioritization, here we develop and validate the “WEGE index” (Weighted Endemism including Global Endangerment index), consisting of an adaptation of the EDGE score (Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered). WEGE allows the ranking of any set of locations according to the KBA guidelines and on a continuous scale. Location Global. Methods We calculated the EDGE score, Weighted Endemism, Evolutionary distinctiveness, Extinction risk and our newly developed WEGE index for all terrestrial species of amphibians, mammals and birds accessed by IUCN. We then compared the performance of each of those five indices at prioritizing areas according to the KBA guidelines. Results We found that for all taxa surveyed, WEGE was consistently better at identifying areas that trigger KBA status. Main conclusions In our analyses, WEGE outperformed all other methods and metrics designed for similar purposes. It can serve as a robust evidence‐based methodology to prioritize among otherwise equally qualified sites according to the KBA categories. WEGE can therefore support transparent, evidence‐based and biologically meaningful decision‐making for conservation priorities.

To examine the impacts of climate change on endemic birds, which are of global significance for conservation, on a continent with few such assessments. We specifically assess projected range changes in relation to the Important Bird Areas (IBAs) network and assess the possible consequences for conservation. South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. The newly emerging ensemble modelling approach is used with 50 species, four climate change models for the period 2070-2100 and eight bioclimatic niche models in the statistical package biomod. Model evaluation is done using the receiver operating characteristic and the recently introduced true skill statistic. Future projections are made considering two extreme assumptions: species have full dispersal ability and species have no dispersal ability. A consensus forecast is identified using principal components analysis. This forecast is interpreted in terms of the IBA network. An irreplaceability analysis is used to highlight priority IBAs for conservation attention in terms of climate change. The majority of species (62%) are predicted to lose climatically suitable space. Five species lose at least 85% of their climatically suitable space. Many IBAs lose species (41%; 47 IBAs) and show high rates of species turnover of more than 50% (77%; 95 IBAs). Highly irreplaceable regions for endemic species become highly localized under climate change, meaning that the endemic species analysed here experience similar range contractions to maintain climate niches. The South African IBAs network is likely to become less effective for conserving endemic birds under climate change. The irreplaceability analysis identified key refugia for endemic species under climate change, but many of these areas are not currently IBAs. In addition, many of these high-priority areas that are IBAs fall outside the current formal protected areas network.

Biodiversity impact assessments under threatened species legislation often focus on individual development proposals at a single location, usually for a single species, leading to inadequate assessments of multiple impacts that accumulate over large spatial scales for multiple species. Regulations requiring ad‐hoc assessments can lead to “death by a thousand cuts,” where biodiversity is degraded by many small impacts that individually do not appear to threaten species’ persistence. Spatial prioritization methods can improve the efficiency of decision‐making by explicitly considering cumulative impacts of multiple proposed developments on multiple species over large spatial scales. We present an assessment approach and a unique case study in which spatial prioritization tools were used to support strategic assessment of a large development plan in Western Australia. The application of the approach helped identify relatively minor alterations to development plans that resulted in reductions in biodiversity impacts and informed expansion of the protected area network. Using these tools to assess trade‐offs between conservation and development will help identify planning footprints that minimize biodiversity losses.

Site conservation is among the most effective means to reduce global biodiversity loss. Therefore, it is critical to identify those sites where unique biodiversity must be conserved immediately. To this end, the concept of key biodiversity areas (KBAs) has been developed, seeking to identify and, ultimately, ensure that networks of globally important sites are safeguarded. This methodology builds up from the identification of species conservation targets (through the IUCN Red List) and nests within larger-scale conservation approaches. Sites are selected using standardized, globally applicable, threshold-based criteria, driven by the distribution and population of species that require site-level conservation. The criteria address the two key issues for setting site conservation priorities: vulnerability and irreplaceability. We also propose quantitative thresholds for the identification of KBAs meeting each criterion, based on a review of existing approaches and ecological theory to date. However, these thresholds require extensive testing, especially in aquatic systems.

Conservation strategies aiming to safeguard species genetic diversity in the Cerrado are urgent. The biome is an agriculture frontier and lost at least 50% of its natural capital since the early 1950s, with the highest rate of vegetation clearing among all Brazilian biomes. Here we match information on geographic range shifts in response to climate changes and habitat loss to define conservation priorities for species genetic diversity using Eugenia dysenterica, a widely distributed tree across the Brazilian Cerrado. We found a set of 27 optimal solutions in which a minimum of 12 out of 23 populations are necessary to represent all 208 alleles of the species. Environmental suitability predicted for 2050 was higher for populations in the southern region of the Cerrado, whereas the proportion of natural remnants around populations expected for 2030 was lower in this same region. Thus, it seems to be more conservative to adopt “in situ” strategies in the northwestern part of the species range to hold more genetic diversity in areas harboring high numbers of natural remnants, despite the likely reduction in climatic suitability. On the other hand, in the southern and southeastern region of the range, despite more stability from a climatic point of view, there was a serious constraint given the high levels of human occupation; in this case, “ex situ” strategies might be a better option for the species. Our results and proposed priorities enable different strategies for making an operational approach for conservation of genetic diversity. Adopting different prioritization strategies for stable and unstable regions (both in climatic suitability and natural remnants) in the future would allow, in principle, to avoid “the worst of both worlds” to achieve an efficient conservation program for the species.