The priority of an area for conservation is determined by three primary factors: its biodiversity value, the level of threat it is facing, and its cost. Although much attention has been paid to the spatial relationship between biodiversity value and threats, and between biodiversity value and costs, little is known about how costs and threats are spatially correlated. The orthodox assumption in conservation science is that costs and threats are positively correlated. Here, we adapt a classic economic theory of land use to explain how conservation scientists came to expect a positive correlation between costs and threats. We then use high‐resolution, ground‐truthed datasets of land sales and habitat clearance to show that this assumption is false in the state of Queensland, Australia. Our results provide an empirical counterargument to a widespread assumption in conservation science, and illustrate why spatial prioritization needs to include independent measures of costs and threats.

中文翻译：

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成本不一定与保护景观中的威胁相关

保护区的优先级取决于三个主要因素：其生物多样性价值，所面临的威胁程度及其成本。尽管人们对生物多样性价值与威胁之间的空间关系以及生物多样性价值与成本之间的空间关系给予了极大关注，但人们对成本与威胁如何在空间上相关的了解甚少。保护科学中的正统假设是成本和威胁呈正相关。在这里，我们采用经典的土地利用经济理论来解释保护科学家如何期望成本与威胁之间存在正相关关系。然后，我们使用土地销售和栖息地清除的高分辨率，真实的数据集，证明此假设在澳大利亚昆士兰州是错误的。