Journal
NATURE ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION
Volume 1, Issue 11, Pages 1677-1682Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/s41559-017-0332-2
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Funding
- Gerald M. Lemole endowed Chair funds
- CAPES-Coordenacao de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior
- Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico-CNPq
- Fundacao de Apoio a Pesquisa do Distrito Federal-FAPDF
- Niche Research Grant Scheme [NRGS/1087/2-13(01)]
- Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) [2011/50206-9, 2012/19858-2, 2015/20215-7]
- SENESCYT
- John Fell Fund of the University of Oxford
- BSF [2012143]
- Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP) [11/50206-9] Funding Source: FAPESP
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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.
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