Conserving mountains is important for protecting biodiversity because they have high beta diversity and endemicity, facilitate species movement, and provide numerous ecosystem benefits for people. Mountains are often thought to have lower levels of human modification and contain more protected area than surrounding lowlands. To examine this, we compared biogeographic attributes of the largest, contiguous, mountainous region on each continent. In each region, we generated detailed ecosystems based on Köppen−Geiger climate regions, ecoregions, and detailed landforms. We quantified anthropogenic fragmentation of these ecosystems based on human modification classes of large wild areas, shared lands, and cities and farms. Human modification for half the mountainous regions approached the global average, and fragmentation reduced the ecological integrity of mountain ecosystems up to 40%. Only one‐third of the major mountainous regions currently meet the Kunming‐Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework target of 30% coverage for all protected areas; furthermore, the vast majority of ecosystem types present in mountains were underrepresented in protected areas. By measuring ecological integrity and human‐caused fragmentation with a detailed representation of mountain ecosystems, our approach facilitates tracking progress toward achieving conservation goals and better informs mountain conservation.

中文翻译：

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评估世界主要山区的生态系统保护和破碎化

保护山脉对于保护生物多样性非常重要，因为它们具有高度的β多样性和地方性，促进物种迁移，并为人类提供众多的生态系统效益。人们通常认为山区的人类改造水平较低，并且比周围的低地拥有更多的保护区。为了检验这一点，我们比较了各大洲最大的、连续的山区的生物地理属性。在每个区域，我们根据柯本-盖革气候区、生态区和详细地貌生成了详细的生态系统。我们根据大片野生地区、共享土地、城市和农场的人类改造类别，量化了这些生态系统的人为破碎。一半山区的人类改造接近全球平均水平，破碎化使山区生态系统的生态完整性降低高达40%。目前，只有三分之一的主要山区达到了昆明-蒙特利尔全球生物多样性框架中所有保护区覆盖率达到30%的目标；此外，山区存在的绝大多数生态系统类型在保护区中的代表性不足。通过对山地生态系统的详细描述来衡量生态完整性和人为造成的破碎化，我们的方法有助于跟踪实现保护目标的进展，并更好地为山地保护提供信息。