Faculty of Agriculture, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Fuchu, Tokyo, 183-8509, Japan.
School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD, 4072, Australia.
Sci Rep. 2022 Feb 9;12(1):2229. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-03119-9.
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 that efficiently meet conservation targets, while their informativeness for identifying cost-efficient areas varied depending on the type of conservation target. Narrowly distributed taxa are informative mainly because their distributions disproportionately capture areas that are either relatively taxon rich or taxon poor, and because of larger number of taxa captured with given number of records. Where resources for updating biological data are limited, a focus on areas supporting many narrowly distributed taxa could benefit conservation planning.
生物图谱数据可作为保护决策的输入，但图谱的更新有时并不频繁，而当物种分布迅速变化时，这可能会产生问题。尽管如此，我们对有效更新生物图谱数据的策略仍了解甚少。本研究使用了 1630 种受威胁植物类群分布图谱，定量比较了分布范围狭窄和广泛的类群在确定符合特定类群保护目标的区域方面的信息量，并衡量了实现这些目标的成本效益。我们还探讨了分布范围狭窄类群信息量的潜在机制。总体而言，对于确定高效满足保护目标的区域，分布范围狭窄的类群远比分布范围广泛的类群更具信息量，而其对于确定成本效益高的区域的信息量则取决于保护目标的类型。分布范围狭窄的类群具有信息量，主要是因为它们的分布不成比例地捕获了相对丰富或相对稀少的物种区域，并且由于使用给定数量的记录捕获了更多的类群。在更新生物数据的资源有限的情况下，关注支持大量分布范围狭窄的类群的区域可能会有益于保护规划。
