Conservation funding is not being allocated based on scientific criteria but rather based in large part on what species we deem to be important, endangered, or worth saving. This problem goes beyond just non-profit organizations saving animals that people care about enough to donate to. Government conservation money and even scientific research is heavily biased to focus on individual vertebrate species, especially large mammals. A 25-year study found that the vast majority of funding went to vertebrate species, with little left for invertebrates and plants and virtually no funding for fungi and protists. This problem also represents a positive feedback cycle because funding is easier to justify for species that have been studied and whose threats to survival are therefore better understood. Under studied groups of species are hard to start studying, since methodology and data still has to be developed, and conservation efforts are not going to be made for species whose endangered status is not well studied. This article talks about the concepts we discussed of ‘charismatic’ endangered species and the reality of conservation funding. We talked about if its really fair or effective to focus on species that people care about more because of aesthetic or cultural reasons, and this article really points out the extent of this inefficiency. It’s also important to remember what we learned about trophic cascades considering how underfunded efforts for plants and fungi are. Even if we value the conservation of these groups less than animals, they are the ones that create and recycle energy that the animals depend on and are necessary for the survival of the rest of the ecosystem. I think the article highlights a crucial problem in conservation. While targeted conservation efforts might not seem like they could do any harm, they do often take away potential funding from other species that need it, and the breakdown of where funding went across kingdoms was astonishing. Plants and invertebrates each received less than 7% of funding despite being the dietary basis for all vertebrate species. Fungi and algae didn’t even receive 0.2% of funding. While these species don’t come to mind as quickly as large mammals, they provide a lot of the ecosystem functions we and those animals rely on through recycling organic matter, distributing nutrients in the soil, and trapping carbon through photosynthesis.