When the latent extinction risk is a positive value, it indicates that a species is currently less threatened than its biology would suggest it ought to be.
Conversely, negative values of latent risk indicate that a species is already more threatened than its biology would indicate, probably because it inhabits a part of the world where it has been exposed to extreme endangering processes.
Unexpectedly, the hotspots of mammal latent risk include large areas of Arctic America, where overall mammal diversity is not high, but where many species have the kind of biological traits (such as large body size and slow reproductive rate) that could render them extinction-prone.
Another notable region of high latent risk for mammals is the island chain of Indonesia and Melanesia, where there are large numbers of restricted-range endemic species.
Because it is much more cost-effective to prevent species declines before they happen than to attempt to rescue species from the brink of extinction, latent risk hotspots could form part of a global scheme to prioritize areas for conservation effort, together with other kinds of priority areas such as biodiversity hotspots.