Abstract As a megadiverse country with three global biodiversity hotspots, a growing human population, and a rapidly developing economy, South Africa exemplifies the challenges facing modern conservation biology. South Africa has established a protected areas network which encompasses 1527 National Parks, nature reserves, wilderness areas, mountain catchment areas, and World Heritage sites. However, the contribution of South Africa's protected areas to biodiversity conservation remains poorly known as many currently protected areas were selected based on the affordability of land or simply situated on sites that were unsuitable for commercial activities, rather than on the biological diversity within them. Here, we model the distribution of >10,000 species, representing South Africa's endemic flora, to evaluate the conservation effectiveness of the current protected areas network. We show that the flora within protected areas has been better sampled than sites outside of protected areas. However, the current protected areas network fails to adequately encompass threatened taxa, many of which are found in threatened ecosystems. We identify locations that represent important conservation gaps, and we suggest that these areas should be included in future conservation planning.

中文翻译：

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评估南非保护区网络的性能及其对生物多样性大国的影响

摘要 作为一个拥有三个全球生物多样性热点、不断增长的人口和快速发展的经济的生物多样性大国，南非是现代保护生物学面临的挑战的例证。南非建立了一个保护区网络，其中包括 1527 个国家公园、自然保护区、荒野地区、山区集水区和世界遗产地。然而，南非保护区对生物多样性保护的贡献仍然鲜为人知，因为许多目前的保护区是根据土地的负担能力选择的，或者只是位于不适合商业活动的地点，而不是其中的生物多样性。在这里，我们对超过 10,000 个物种的分布进行建模，这些物种代表南非的特有植物群，评估当前保护区网络的保护效果。我们表明，与保护区外的地点相比，保护区内的植物群得到了更好的采样。然而，目前的保护区网络未能充分涵盖受威胁的类群，其中许多是在受威胁的生态系统中发现的。我们确定了代表重要保护差距的位置，我们建议这些区域应包括在未来的保护规划中。