Prioritizing Choices in the Conservation of Flora and Fauna: Research Trends and Methodological Approaches

Abstract

Here, we synthesized the research trends in conservation priorities for terrestrial fauna and flora across the globe from peer-reviewed articles published from 1990 to 2022, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Results showed India to have the highest number of studies (i.e., 12) about the topic. Contrarily, most of the megadiverse and biodiversity hotspot countries have only 1–3 studies. Flora studies are more documented than faunal studies. The bio-ecological attributes are the most frequently used criteria for prioritizing choices in the conservation of fauna (i.e., 55.42%) and flora species (i.e., 41.08%). The climatic/edaphic and the taxonomic/genetic variables for flora had the lowest frequency (i.e., <5%). For fauna, the lowest value (i.e., <10%) was observed in socioeconomic and climatic/edaphic criteria. Moreover, the point scoring method (PSM), was the most frequently used in conservation prioritization, followed by conservation priority index (CPI), correlation analysis, principal component analysis (PCA), species distribution model, and rule-based method. The present review also showed multiple species as the most frequently used approach in prioritizing conservation choices in both flora and fauna species. We highlight the need to increase not only the conservation prioritization studies but also the scientific efforts on improving biodiversity-related information in hotspot regions for an improved prioritization methodology, particularly in faunal aspect.