Discussion
Our results suggest that including a large number of small patches in area-based conservation actions will usually result in higher biodiversity protection than expected based solely on their cumulative area (Deane et al. 2020; Fahrig 2020; Riva & Fahrig 2022). Furthermore, we find this for all taxa except herptiles (Figs. 2, 3). Positive fragmentation effects on biodiversity were apparent for plants, birds, invertebrates, and mammals, where SS > SL was at least twice as likely as SL > SS (Fig. 2). Mechanisms underlying biodiversity patterns across sets of patches are reviewed in Fahrig (2020) and Fahrig et al. (2022), particularly in relation to extinction-colonization dynamics and species turnover across patches. We first speculate on how these mechanisms might have determined the taxonomic differences observed in our study (Fig. 2, 3), and then discuss the implications of our results for biodiversity conservation.