Selecting surrogate species for species-based conservation in the Plateau-Mountains-Basin transition region of southwestern China

• Selecting surrogate species for species-based conservation is challenging. • Quantifying species’ habitat relationships enhances surrogate species identification. • Surrogate species were found to effectively represent priority conservation species. • Surrogate species-based strategies help to effectively safeguard biodiversity. • First study identifying surrogates and conservation hotspots using fine-scale maps. Urgent conservation action is needed to safeguard biodiversity. One promising approach is the use of surrogate species in species-based conservation strategies, which can indirectly benefit other species that share similar habitat requirements. However, the lack of spatial quantification methods to accurately select representative species at large-scale regions has limited the application of surrogate species in conservation. To address this, our study presents two methods to quantify and select surrogate species for species-based conservation in the Plateau-Mountains-Basin transition region of China (∼486,000 km 2 ). These two methods follow the same selection process, moving from priority conservation species to refined candidate species, and finally to surrogate species. Specifically, we compiled a species list of priority conservation plant species and used multiple datasets to predict the area of habitat maps for these species. We found 140 priority conservation plants distributed around the Sichuan Basin. Building on their distributions, we selected 17 surrogate species using indicator value analysis, considering 18 different subregion combinations and 4 habitat overlap scenarios. Alternatively, we applied a second method, selecting 19 surrogate species based on factor analysis, while considering the correlation analysis of pairwise species combinations. The richness map of these surrogate species shows a distribution pattern similar to that of the 140 priority conservation plants. Based on the distribution patterns of surrogate species, we identified conservation hotspots in the mountains around the Sichuan Basin. By utilizing the fine-scale area of habitat maps, our study offers valuable strategies for selecting surrogate species in species-based conservation efforts aimed at safeguarding biodiversity in ecologically critical regions.