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Conserving rare species can have high opportunity costs for common species
Author(s) -
Neeson Thomas M.,
Doran Patrick J.,
Ferris Michael C.,
Fitzpatrick Kimberly B.,
Herbert Matthew,
Khoury Mary,
Moody Allison T.,
Ross Jared,
Yacobson Eugene,
McIntyre Peter B.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
global change biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.146
H-Index - 255
eISSN - 1365-2486
pISSN - 1354-1013
DOI - 10.1111/gcb.14162
Subject(s) - rare species , habitat , umbrella species , opportunity cost , incentive , common species , ecology , habitat conservation , context (archaeology) , abundance (ecology) , ecosystem , environmental resource management , geography , endangered species , biology , environmental science , economics , neoclassical economics , archaeology , microeconomics
Conservation practitioners face difficult choices in apportioning limited resources between rare species (to ensure their existence) and common species (to ensure their abundance and ecosystem contributions). We quantified the opportunity costs of conserving rare species of migratory fishes in the context of removing dams and retrofitting road culverts across 1,883 tributaries of the North American Great Lakes. Our optimization models show that maximizing total habitat gains across species can be very efficient in terms of benefits achieved per dollar spent, but disproportionately benefits common species. Conservation approaches that target rare species, or that ensure some benefits for every species (i.e., complementarity) enable strategic allocation of resources among species but reduce aggregate habitat gains. Thus, small habitat gains for the rarest species necessarily come at the expense of more than 20 times as much habitat for common ones. These opportunity costs are likely to occur in many ecosystems because range limits and conservation costs often vary widely among species. Given that common species worldwide are declining more rapidly than rare ones within major taxa, our findings provide incentive for triage among multiple worthy conservation targets.