umbrella species

Conservation money and attention are finite, so protecting every species separately is not realistic. The umbrella species idea is a way around that constraint: choose one species whose conservation, in the definition the US National Park Service cites from Roberge and Angelstam, confers protection to a large number of naturally occurring species.

The species chosen for the job usually needs a great deal of room. Elk and tigers both range across large territories, so a reserve big enough to hold a viable population of either is necessarily big enough to hold the forests, rivers, prey animals and smaller creatures inside it. Protect the umbrella and everything standing under it gets covered too.

It is a useful shorthand rather than a guarantee, and researchers have tested where it fails. Reserves designed around one species protect the habitat of ecologically similar species well, and species with narrow or unusual ranges much less well, so an umbrella left unchecked can leave gaps. The concept is a starting point for conservation planning, not a substitute for checking which species are actually being covered.