The global distribution of tetrapods reveals a need for targeted reptile conservation
Autor: | Anat Feldman, Matthew LeBreton, Yuezhao Wang, Guarino R. Colli, Enav Vidan, Omar Torres-Carvajal, Marcio Martins, Monika Böhm, Roberto Sindaco, Danny Meirte, Lital Dabool, Amir Lewin, C. David L. Orme, Philipp Wagner, Fred Kraus, Uri Roll, Marinus S. Hoogmoed, Aaron M. Bauer, Yuval Itescu, Peter Uetz, Ben Collen, Erez Maza, Allen Allison, L. Lee Grismer, Richard Grenyer, Tiffany M. Doan, Maria Novosolov, Daniel Pincheira-Donoso, Fernando Castro-Herrera, Rodolphe Bernard, Jean-François Trape, Zoltán T. Nagy, Olivier S. G. Pauwels, Laurent Chirio, Gary D. Powney, Cristiano Nogueira, Shai Meiri, Oliver J.S. Tallowin, Indraneil Das |
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Rok vydání: | 2017 |
Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
0301 basic medicine Conservation of Natural Resources Ecology biology Lizard Biodiversity Reptiles Vertebrate 010603 evolutionary biology 01 natural sciences Ecology and Environment 03 medical and health sciences 030104 developmental biology Taxon Habitat biology.animal Animals Conservation biology Species richness Animal Distribution Ecology Evolution Behavior and Systematics Global biodiversity |
Zdroj: | Nature Ecology & Evolution. 1:1677-1682 |
ISSN: | 2397-334X |
Popis: | The distributions of amphibians, birds and mammals have underpinned global and local conservation priorities, and have been fundamental to our understanding of the determinants of global biodiversity. In contrast, the global distributions of reptiles, representing a third of terrestrial vertebrate diversity, have been unavailable. This prevented the incorporation of reptiles into conservation planning and biased our understanding of the underlying processes governing global vertebrate biodiversity. Here, we present and analyse the global distribution of 10,064 reptile species (99% of extant terrestrial species). We show that richness patterns of the other three tetrapod classes are good spatial surrogates for species richness of all reptiles combined and of snakes, but characterize diversity patterns of lizards and turtles poorly. Hotspots of total and endemic lizard richness overlap very little with those of other taxa. Moreover, existing protected areas, sites of biodiversity significance and global conservation schemes represent birds and mammals better than reptiles. We show that additional conservation actions are needed to effectively protect reptiles, particularly lizards and turtles. Adding reptile knowledge to a global complementarity conservation priority scheme identifies many locations that consequently become important. Notably, investing resources in some of the world’s arid, grassland and savannah habitats might be necessary to represent all terrestrial vertebrates efficiently. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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