Tropical biodiversity faces escalating threats from habitat loss and human disturbance,
yet the fine-scale drivers of threatened species richness and their overlap with overall
biodiversity remain poorly understood. This study evaluated environmental and
anthropogenic factors influencing threatened species occurrence and assessed the
alignment of their hotspots with overall species richness. We combined camera trap
data from 255 sites across Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo (11,280 trap nights), with high-
resolution topographic, environmental, and human-impact data. We analyzed 36
species classified into three conservation categories (IUCN Red List; Sarawak Wild Life
Protection Ordinance 1998; and a composite imperiled Endangered, Rare, and
Threatened group) using a Bayesian community occupancy model that accounts for
imperfect detection. While habitat features like canopy height and terrain roughness
drove richness across all groups, IUCN Red List species showed distinct sensitivity to
human pressure, occurring primarily in high-biomass forests distant from settlements.
Conversely, locally protected and composite species largely mirrored overall richness
patterns. Crucially, hotspot analyses revealed minimal overlap between Red List
species and overall richness. These results demonstrate that general richness patterns
fail to capture critical habitats for the most imperiled taxa, emphasizing the urgent need
for threat-specific, multi-layered conservation planning to safeguard biodiversity in
tropical landscapes.