Small habitat patches have been historically neglected in conservation, primarily because extinction risk is higher in small patches. Nevertheless, sets of small patches usually harbor more species than one or a few larger patches of equal total area. Resolving this inconsistency is key to policy and practice in biodiversity conservation. Our analysis of 32 datasets (603 patches and 2290 taxa) provides two novel lines of evidence confirming that small patches have disproportionately high value for biodiversity. First, sets of small patches harbor more species than large patches even when considering only species of conservation concern. Second, sets of small patches harbor more species than large patches even when the small patches are very small compared to the large patches. Therefore, higher extinction risk in small than large patches does not decrease the cumulative value of small patches for biodiversity. We contend that acknowledging the conservation value of small patches, even very small patches, will be a necessary step for stemming biodiversity loss in the Anthropocene.

中文翻译：

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小斑块对生物多样性保护的价值过高

历史上，小栖息地斑块在保护中一直被忽视，主要是因为小斑块的灭绝风险较高。然而，一组小斑块通常比一个或几个总面积相等的大斑块包含更多的物种。解决这种不一致是生物多样性保护政策和实践的关键。我们对 32 个数据集（603 个斑块和 2290 个分类群）的分析提供了两条新证据，证实小斑块对生物多样性具有不成比例的高价值。首先，即使仅考虑受保护的物种，小斑块集合也比大斑块包含更多的物种。其次，即使小斑块与大斑块相比非常小，小斑块集也比大斑块包含更多的物种。所以，小斑块的灭绝风险高于大斑块并不会降低小斑块对生物多样性的累积价值。我们认为，承认小斑块的保护价值，即使是非常小的斑块，将是阻止人类世生物多样性丧失的必要步骤。