Species richness is a surrogate for rare plant occurrence, but not conservation value, in boreal plant communities

Research article examining the relationship between vascular plant richness and occurrence of rare plants in boreal communities. Our objective was to assess the nature of this relationship, and to determine whether species richness could be used as a surrogate for predicting rare plant occurrence, and by extension an indicator of site conservation value. We found rare species occurrence to be positively associated with richness, but concluded that richness is a poor surrogate for determining site conservation value, because of significant variations in richness-rarity relationship among different habitat types.