Abstract Although they are the foundations of most efforts to conserve biodiversity, protected areas in the United States have, historically, not always been located in the most important areas to accomplish this goal. We investigated the overlap between suitable habitat for wildlife species of conservation concern and the location of public and private highly protected areas to assess the degree to which current highly protected areas are providing fine-scale habitat for wildlife species of conservation concern, to explore the relationship between the size of total suitable habitat of a species and its vulnerability to extinction, and to identify the species that are poorly represented in highly protected areas and determine where their habitats overlap—i.e., where future protected areas may best be located. We found that nearly one third of terrestrial wildlife species in the contiguous U.S. are vulnerable to extinction and that even though there is a relationship between total suitable habitat area and vulnerability, we find that synthetic indices of endemism and rarity-weighted richness are not necessarily good indicators of whether a species will be of conservation concern. Of all 537 wildlife species of conservation concern, only 62 (11%) are well represented in highly protected areas. To increase representation of habitats of wildlife species of conservation concern, scientists and managers should look to preserve lands where there is the greatest overlap among habitats for species of concern that are currently poorly represented in the reserve system, with special focus on species with small ranges on public lands.

中文翻译：

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美国本土脆弱野生动物及其栖息地和保护区的评估

摘要 尽管它们是保护生物多样性的大多数努力的基础，但从历史上看，美国的保护区并不总是位于实现这一目标的最重要区域。我们调查了受保护的野生动物物种的适宜栖息地与公共和私人高度保护区的位置之间的重叠，以评估当前高度保护区为受保护的野生动物物种提供精细栖息地的程度，以探索这种关系物种的总适宜栖息地大小与其濒临灭绝的脆弱性之间的关系，并确定在高度保护区中代表性不足的物种，并确定它们的栖息地重叠的地方——即未来保护区可能最好的位置。我们发现美国本土近三分之一的陆生野生动物物种容易灭绝，尽管总适宜栖息地面积与脆弱性之间存在关系，但我们发现特有性和稀有性丰富度的综合指数不一定好一个物种是否会受到保护关注的指标。在所有 537 种受保护的野生动物物种中，只有 62 种（11%）在高度保护区内得到很好的体现。为了增加受保护的野生动物物种栖息地的代表性，科学家和管理人员应着眼于保护目前在保护区系统中代表性不足的受关注物种的栖息地重叠最多的土地，特别关注分布范围小的物种在公共土地上。