Abstract Because forest tree species face serious threats including insect and disease epidemics, climate change, and forest fragmentation and conversion, prioritizing species and forests for conservation is an essential management goal. This paper describes a species prioritization approach that incorporates both the rarity of species, because of the increased vulnerability associated with rare species, and their evolutionary distinctiveness (ED), a measure of evolutionary originality. Rarity and ED scores, and scores for the two combined, were calculated for 352 North American forest tree species. A weak but significant phylogenetic signal was associated with species rarity. The scores were used to weight species importance values on approximately 130,000 forest inventory plots across the conterminous United States. The resulting plot-level estimates of conservation value were employed to identify geographic hotspots of forests with high conservation value, and to assess whether forests with protected status effectively conserve rarity and ED. Rarity hotspots were detected in California, the Southwest, central Texas, and Florida. Hotspots of ED included locations along the Pacific Coast, in the Northern Rockies, and in scattered eastern locations. Protected forest areas across the United States effectively conserve ED, but not rarity. In fact, rarity was lowest in areas with the highest protection, and highest in areas with no or unknown protected status. Multiple-use protected areas had higher ED, but not rarity, than restricted-use protected areas. Protected area effectiveness varied across the country. Such spatially explicit assessment approaches can help determine which forests to target for monitoring efforts and pro-active management activities.

中文翻译：

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美国保护区是否有效地保护了林木的稀有性和进化的独特性？

摘要 由于森林树种面临虫害流行、气候变化、森林破碎化和转化等严重威胁，优先保护树种和森林是一项重要的管理目标。本文描述了一种物种优先排序方法，该方法结合了物种的稀有性（因为与稀有物种相关的脆弱性增加）和它们的进化独特性 (ED)（进化原创性的衡量标准）。稀有度和 ED 分数以及两者的总分是针对 352 种北美森林树种计算得出的。一个微弱但重要的系统发育信号与物种稀有性有关。这些分数用于对美国本土大约 130,000 个森林清单地块的物种重要性值进行加权。由此产生的地块级保护价值估计值用于确定具有高保护价值的森林的地理热点，并评估具有保护状态的森林是否有效地保护了稀有性和 ED。在加利福尼亚州、西南部、德克萨斯州中部和佛罗里达州发现了稀有热点。ED 的热点包括太平洋沿岸、落基山脉北部和分散的东部地区。美国各地的森林保护区有效地保护了 ED，但并不罕见。事实上，在保护程度最高的地区，稀有度最低，而在没有或未知保护状态的地区，稀有度最高。多用途保护区比限制用途保护区具有更高的 ED，但并不罕见。全国各地保护区的有效性各不相同。