Evaluating geophysical diversity as a surrogate for biodiversity in conservation planning

In response to the growing biodiversity crisis, governing agencies are looking to expand protected area coverage. However, it is difficult to decide which sites to protect for biodiversity because biotic information is limited and costly to obtain. Environmental diversity, particularly geophysical diversity, could be a cost-saving and effective alternative for informing site selection. In this project, I explored different variable selections to define an environmental surrogate and compared implementation methods for using the surrogate in site selection. I then evaluated surrogate performance for 42 biological inventory data sets from around the globe. From the method comparison components of this project, I found better performing procedures that I used in the final surrogate tests. Across all tests, the geophysical surrogate performed on average better than random. This project's findings suggest that spatial patterns of geophysical diversity at the landscape scale can help identify high-priority areas for maximizing species representation in conservation planning