Multiple forms of hotspots of tetrapod biodiversity and the challenges of open-access data scarcity

Abstract

The uneven spatial distribution of biodiversity is a defining feature of nature. In fact, the implementation of conservation actions both locally and globally has progressively been guided by the identification of biodiversity ‘hotspots’ (areas with exceptional biodiversity). However, different regions of the world differ drastically in the availability of fine-scale data on the diversity and distribution of species, thus limiting the potential to assess their local environmental priorities. Within South America—a megadiverse continent—Uruguay represents a peculiar area where multiple tropical and non-tropical eco-regions converge, creating highly heterogeneous ecosystems, but where the systematic quantification of biodiversity remains largely anecdotal. To investigate the constraints posed by the limited access to biodiversity data, we employ the most comprehensive database for tetrapod vertebrates in Uruguay (spanning 664 species) assembled to date, to identify hotspots of species-richness, endemism and threatened species for the first time. Our results reveal negligible spatial congruence among biodiversity hotspots, and that tetrapod sampling has historically concentrated in only a few areas. Collectively, our study provides a detailed account of the areas where urgent biodiversity monitoring efforts are needed to develop more accurate knowledge on biodiversity patterns, offering government and environmental bodies a critical scientific resource for future planning.

Occurrence-based diversity estimation reveals macroecological and conservation knowledge gaps for global woody plants

“…Our results revealed that there are areas, both inside and outside the global protected area network, where botanical sampling efforts have been inadequate or non-existent. This incomplete data can result in spatial disparities between biodiversity and protected area networks (68). Our findings demonstrated that locations with a potentially high number of rare and diverse woody angiosperms are present in the data-deficient areas, suggesting a conservation gap of the current protected areas.…”

Understanding the changes induced by the incorporation of trees in low densities into livestock systems: relevance of a long-term interdisciplinary experimental platform

“…In the global context, amphibians constitute the most threatened vertebrate group, according to IUCN red lists categorization (Button & Borzée 2021). Notably the region of this experimental platform is located at a rich region in amphibian species (Grattarola et al 2020;Laufer et al 2021). Amphibians, with their heightened sensitivity to environmental shifts and relatively limited mobility in comparison to other vertebrates, emerge as invaluable indicators within experiments of this nature (Böll et al 2013).…”

A perspective on biodiversity data and applications for spatio-temporally robust spatial planning for area-based conservation

“…The choice of the data resolution is a classic issue in conservation science that has been discussed in two separate contexts, i.e., mathematical suboptimality and cost-efficiency issues resulting from spatial biases [33,34], and spatial aggregation of conservation areas to improve long-term conservation efficacy [35]. Biodiversity data are spatially, temporally, and taxonomically biased [36][37][38][39] due to shortages of survey efforts [40] and a lack of mobilization of potentially usable information, including undigitized records [37,41]. Such incomplete and biased information can degrade the performance of conservation planning [42].…”