Summary
Forest Service scientists describe the biodiversity and associated landscape diversity and forest cover characteristics within the network of terrestrial protected areas in Puerto Rico. They conducted spatial analysis to quantify different indicators of diversity at these sites. They found that protected areas in Puerto Rico overlap the most species-rich regions on the island, encompass a diverse landscape, are dominated by core forest, and include predicted habitats for 31 threatened vertebrate species analyzed here. They also calculated the proportion of the biodiversity features that are actually protected and concluded that most of them need better representation within protected areas.
