There is a longstanding conservation debate on the benefits that protected areas such as national parks have for biodiversity.
We recruited an international team of scientists to conduct a comprehensive analysis of bird and mammal diversity inside and outside parks across South-East Asia.
To be honest, we were surprised mammal diversity was higher outside large parks.
It's common to see hunters both inside and outside parks in many countries.
We expected hunters' removal of game animals would reduce diversity outside parks.
Specifically, when comparing unprotected areas near large reserves to unprotected areas that didn't border large reserves, we found large reserves boosted mammal diversity in unprotected areas by up to 194%. However, a sad note from our study was the finding that only larger parks significantly enhanced mammal diversity, casting doubt on the effectiveness of smaller parks for mammal conservation.
Recent work in the region suggests many large mammals persist in small parks, but our study shows the presence of a few resilient animals in small parks doesn't scale up to higher biodiversity overall.