Diversity and distribution of amphibians in Romania

Abstract

Nineteen species of amphibians inhabit Romania, 9 of which reach their range limit on this territory. Based on published occurrence reports, museum collections and our own data we compiled a national database of amphibian occurrences. We georeferenced 26779 amphibian species occurrences, and performed an analysis of their spatial patterns, checking for hotspots and patterns of species richness. The results of spatial statistic analyses supported the idea of a biased sampling for Romania, with clear hotspots of increased sampling efforts. The sampling effort is biased towards species with high detectability, protected areas, and large cities. Future sampling efforts should be focused mostly on species with a high rarity score in order to accurately map their range. Our results are an important step in achieving the long-term goals of increasing the efficiency of conservation efforts and evaluating the species range shifts under climate change scenarios.

Diversity and distribution of reptiles in Romania

“…Two gaps that require further investigations were revealed in the southern part of Romania (Oltenia and Bărăgan plains), probably being determined by the lack of research interest in those regions, due to their dominant agricultural landscape (Rey et al 2007, Iojă et al 2011). The gaps in reptile richness were similar to those of amphibian richness (Cogălniceanu et al 2013). …”

“…Despite those hotspots, the sampling effort was balanced across the country; therefore the dataset might be useful for additional analyses with only a simple trimming procedure required (Peterson et al 2011). In the case of amphibians (Cogălniceanu et al 2013), the sampling effort was biased towards the same hotspots but their number was significantly less numerous for reptiles. Nevertheless, the patterns in species richness support a similar statement revealing a higher richness in the warmer and drier climate in the south-west and the south-east parts of Romania (e.g., Rodríguez et al 2005) and a constant richness in the rest of the country.…”

Identification of areas of very high biodiversity value to achieve the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 key commitments

“…Our prioritization is constrained by the limited availability of occurrence data for most of the Annex II Habitats Directive species. With few exceptions, such as reptiles, amphibians, mammals in the Dobrogea region, large carnivores (Bîrsan et al, 2017;Cogǎlniceanu et al, 2013a;Cogǎlniceanu et al, 2013b;Cristescu et al, 2019;Miu et al, 2018) species distribution data are available as extent of occurrence, rather than specific locations or modeled species distributions (EIONET, 2020). Also, other sources extensively used in prioritization research, such as GBIF (e.g., Guo et al, 2020), include low numbers of occurrence data for Romania.…”

Peer Review #2 of "Identification of areas of very high biodiversity value to achieve the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 key commitments (v0.1)"

“…Most sites with top-priority grid cells occur in the Continental region (56 sites) and the Alpine region (38 sites), followed by the Our prioritization is constrained by the limited availability of occurrence data for most of the Annex II Habitats Directive species. With few exceptions, such as reptiles, amphibians, mammals in the Dobrogea region, large carnivores (Bîrsan et al 2017;Cogǎlniceanu et al 2013a;Cogǎlniceanu et al 2013b;Cristescu et al 2019;Miu et al 2018) species distribution data are available as extent of occurrence, rather than specific locations or modeled species distributions (EIONET 2020). Also, other sources extensively used in prioritization research, such as GBIF (e.g., Guo et al 2020), include low numbers of occurrence data for Romania.…”