WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS
A conservation-priority assessment of 14 granitoid and 34 quartzite caves found that when cave types were ranked together, ten of fourteen granitoid caves dropped into lower priority categories than in lithology-specific analysis. Six quartzite caves also shifted category.
WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ
A scoring system can look objective while its baseline quietly favors the best-studied geology. Stratify by habitat-generating processes before using relative indices to allocate irreversible conservation decisions.
CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY
Rank shifts reflect this particular index, cave sample and available biological inventories; they are not direct evidence that each reclassified site will have a different restoration outcome.
SOURCE
Biodiversity and Conservation — Iniesta et al. (26 Oct 2026)
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