Global priority areas for amphibian research

LOYOLA, RAFAEL; NORI, JAVIER; VILLALOBOS, FABRICIO

JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Año: 2018

0305-0270

Aim Lack of biological information is a silent but strong impediment for planning how to rescue amphibians from extinction. Currently, 24% of all amphibian species are assigned to the Data Deficient (DD) category of IUCN. Here, we aim to identify priority areas for amphibian research that could help gather information on these species and overcome such knowledge gap. Location Global. Taxon Amphibians. Methods We mapped the distribution of 1578 DD amphibian species and then defined priority research areas as those areas with high and complementary concentration of amphibian DD species that could be considered important areas for studying (and therefore conserving) such species. To evaluate the performance of the proposed priority research areas, we calculated the percentage of species overlapping these areas, considering all amphibian DD species; recently described species and geographically restricted DD species. We also determined the proportion of priority research areas falling inside each continent and country of the world. Finally, we estimated the level protection of these species and of human pressure on natural ecosystems found within our priority research areas. Results We showed that gathering biological information of species from just 0.4% of the world area could clarify the conservation status of more than 80% of DD amphibians. Most identified priority research areas overlap with regions under high human pressure and only a small percentage of DD amphibian species might cope with those altered conditions. Main conclusions Knowledge shortfalls represent a major issue for amphibian conservation globally, however, the picture could radically change if research efforts and investments are geographically strategically distributed. This study brings the first application of a complementary‐based tool, which has been originally designed and implemented in conservation planning, aimed at generating information that help researchers to fill knowledge gaps as efficiently as possible.