ArticleNature ecology & evolution2021
Areas of global importance for conserving terrestrial biodiversity, carbon and water.
Article in Nature ecology & evolution, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 74 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
74 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 351 citations in OpenAlex.
- Towards evidence-based conservation of subterranean ecosystems.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2022Pooled it
- Overcoming barriers to sustainable agricultural intensification.Royal Society open science · 2026Article
- Afforestation and reforestation support coupled gains in soil life and carbon storage worldwide.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Microbial Functional Genes Help Explain Soil Carbon Sensitivity to Temperature Across Global Biomes.Global change biology · 2026Article
- Synergies and trade-offs for reaching global biodiversity and climate commitments.Nature communications · 2026Article
- MaxEnt Projections of Climate-Driven Distribution Shifts forEcology and evolution · 2026Article
- Integrating α and β diversity in conservation planning.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2026Article
- Growing nickel supply from the tropics threatens priority conservation areas.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Hidden biodiversity costs of a deep-sea mining moratorium.Nature ecology & evolution · 2026Article
- Social implications of the 30×30 global conservation target.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Climate response to Nature Future scenarios in a regional Earth System Model.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Balancing land use for conservation, agriculture, and renewable energy.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Social movements are transformative agents for biodiversity conservation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Road expansion risk predicts future hotspots of tropical deforestation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Gaps in tropical science from unrepresentative distribution of sampling and citation across natural terrestrial environments.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Reconciling crop production, climate action and nature conservation in Europe by agricultural intensification and extensification.Nature communications · 2025Article
- A dataset on metal-related production activities and their socio-environmental impacts in Canada.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Effect of primate protection on threatened and endemic vertebrates, plants, ecosystem services, and future climate refugia.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2025Article
- Opportunity cost estimates for spatial conservation prioritisation across terrestrial Europe.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Invasive plants have a delayed and longer flowering phenology than native plants in an ecoregional flora.Annals of botany · 2025Article
14 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
53 authors at 20 institutions in 14 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
To meet the ambitious objectives of biodiversity and climate conventions, the international community requires clarity on how these objectives can be operationalized spatially and how multiple targets can be pursued concurrently. To support goal setting and the implementation of international strategies and action plans, spatial guidance is needed to identify which land areas have the potential to generate the greatest synergies between conserving biodiversity and nature's contributions to people. Here we present results from a joint optimization that minimizes the number of threatened species, maximizes carbon retention and water quality regulation, and ranks terrestrial conservation priorities globally. We found that selecting the top-ranked 30% and 50% of terrestrial land area would conserve respectively 60.7% and 85.3% of the estimated total carbon stock and 66% and 89.8% of all clean water, in addition to meeting conservation targets for 57.9% and 79% of all species considered. Our data and prioritization further suggest that adequately conserving all species considered (vertebrates and plants) would require giving conservation attention to ~70% of the terrestrial land surface. If priority was given to biodiversity only, managing 30% of optimally located land area for conservation may be sufficient to meet conservation targets for 81.3% of the terrestrial plant and vertebrate species considered. Our results provide a global assessment of where land could be optimally managed for conservation. We discuss how such a spatial prioritization framework can support the implementation of the biodiversity and climate conventions.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.