Sometimes small changes in the right place can make a big difference. That’s what a team of scientists found when they looked at how parks, sanctuaries and reserves might better protect the birds and mammals that inhabit them.

In a new study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, lead author Laura Pollock and her colleagues found that if we upped the land area under protection by just 5 percent in strategic locations, the number of safeguarded species could triple.

For their research, they mapped out the parts of the world currently under protection and tabulated the numbers of known mammal and bird species in those places. They also figured in the protection of two other “facets” of biodiversity – the functional roles that different animals play in their ecosystems and the amount of unique evolution, often measured in millions of years, that those animals represent.

Just like the number of species, both facets would be much better protected with that targeted 5 percent bump in conservation lands.

“Most conservation looks at species,” said Pollock, an ecologist at France’s Grenoble Alpes University, in an interview. The approach typically hinges on seeking out threatened areas that are hotspots of wildlife biodiversity and focusing energy on protecting them. Still, the researchers report, 26 percent of bird and mammal species don’t show up in most protected areas.

“Just targeting a biodiversity hotspot is not going to be the most efficient,” she said. “You’re potentially overlooking some really important species.”