Global gaps in the knowledge of the herptiles' response to land transformation

JAVIER NORI; LUIS OSORIO-OLVERA; CORDIER, JAVIER MAXIMILIANO; JOAQUIN HORTAL

FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

ECOLOGICAL SOC AMER

Año: 2023

1540-9295

Understanding species responses to land transformation is an essential step to reaching accurate conservation policies. This is especially urgent in deforestation hotspots, and for those groups particularly sensitive to land cover changes. However, the lack of data on population trends isone of the most pervasive biodiversity knowledge shortfalls, hampering the design of effective conservation strategies. Here we map the global knowledge (and ignorance) about species population change between different types of land cover for amphibians and reptiles, with special emphasis on deforestation hotspots. Our results show that there is scant information even about this proxy of population trends. On average, there is no data for 75% of the amphibians and 83% of the reptiles present on each pixel. Even worse, this information is extremely scarce on the deforestation fronts. Strategic investments aimed to fill these gaps, especially in deforestation hotspots, are an urgent step to guide conservation policymaking.