2016-12-23T18:52:10

Of the 10,272 currently recognized reptile species, the trade of fewer than 8% are regulated by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the European Wildlife Trade Regulations (EWTR). However, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List has assessed 45% of the world's reptile species and determined that at least 1390 species are threatened by “biological resource use”. Of these, 355 species are intentionally targeted by collectors, including 194 non-CITES-listed species. Herein we review the global reptile pet trade, its impacts, and its contribution to the over-harvesting of species and populations, in light of current international law. Findings are based on an examination of relevant professional observations, online sources, and literature (e.g., applicable policies, taxonomy [reptile database], trade statistics [EUROSTAT], and conservation status [IUCN Red List]). Case studies are presented from the following countries and regions: Australia, Central America, China, Galapagos Islands (Ecuador), Germany, Europe, India, Indonesia (Kalimantan), Islamic Republic of Iran, Japan, Madagascar, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Western Africa, and Western Asia. The European Union (EU) plays a major role in reptile trade. Between 2004 and 2014 (the period under study), the EU member states officially reported the import of 20,788,747 live reptiles. This review suggests that illegal trade activities involve species regulated under CITES, as well as species that are not CITES-regulated but nationally protected in their country of origin and often openly offered for sale in the EU. Further, these case studies demonstrate that regulations and enforcement in several countries are inadequate to prevent the overexploitation of species and to halt illegal trade activities. (Résumé d'auteur

niche shifts and environmental non-equilibrium in invading alien species undermine niche-based predictions of alien species' potential distributions and, consequently, their usefulness for invasion risk assessments. Here, we compared the realized climatic niches of four alien amphibian species (Hylarana erythraea, Rhinella marina, Hoplobatrachus rugulosus, and Kaloula pulchra) in their native and Philippine-invaded ranges to investigate niche changes that have unfolded during their invasion and, with this, assessed the extent of niche conservatism and environmental equilibrium. We investigated how niche changes affected reciprocal transferability of ecological niche models (ENMs) calibrated using data from the species' native and Philippine-invaded ranges, and both ranges combined. We found varying levels of niche change across the species' realized climatic niches in the Philippines: climatic niche shift for H. rugulosus; niche conservatism for R. marina and K. pulchra; environmental nonequilibrium in the philippine-invaded range for all species; and environmental non-equilibrium in the native range or adaptive changes post-introduction for all species except H. erythraea. niche changes undermined the reciprocal transferability of ENMs calibrated using native and Philippine-invaded range data. Our paper highlights the difficulty of predicting potential distributions given niche shifts and environmental non-equilibrium; we suggest calibrating ENMs with data from species' combined native and invaded ranges, and to regularly reassess niche changes and recalibrate ENMs as species' invasions progress. The large-scale redistribution of alien species-i.e., species whose presence in a region is attributed to human activities that enabled them to overcome fundamental biogeographical barriers (sensu Richardson et al. 1)-is a defining feature of the Anthropocene 2,3. Alien species' invasions can alter the ecology of recipient environments 4,5 and have socioeconomic impacts on recipient jurisdictions 6. Recognizing these impacts, world nations have committed to develop and implement science-based biosecurity policies and strategies in response to ongoing and future alien species invasions 7,8 , for biodiversity conservation 9 and sustainability 10. Invasion risk assessments assess the ecological and socioeconomic impacts of alien species' invasions, producing the needed information to prioritize alien species and areas for biosecurity intervention 7,11. Invasion risk assessment activities include predicting the potential distribution (i.e., climatically suitable areas) of invading and/or potentially invasive alien species 11. These predictions can be made through ecological niche modelling (ENM; aka species distribution modelling) 12-15-a correlative statistical tool that quantifies species-environment

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