Global priorities for an effective information basis of biodiversity distributions.
Gaps in digital accessible information (DAI) on species distributions hamper prospects of safeguarding biodiversity and ecosystem services, and addressing central ecological and evolutionary questions. Achieving international targets on biodiversity knowledge requires that information gaps be identified and actions prioritized. Integrating 157 million point records and distribution maps for 21,170 terrestrial vertebrate species, we find that outside a few well-sampled regions, DAI on point occurrences provides very limited and spatially biased inventories of species. Surprisingly, many large, emerging economies are even more under-represented in global DAI than species-rich, developing countries in the tropics. Multi-model inference reveals that completeness is mainly limited by distance to researchers, locally available research funding and participation in data-sharing networks, rather than transportation infrastructure, or size and funding of Western data contributors as often assumed. Our results highlight the urgent need for integrating non-Western data sources and intensifying cooperation to more effectively address societal biodiversity information needs.
Biodiversity, Macroecology and Conservation Biogeography Group, Faculty of Forest Sciences, University of Göttingen, Büsgenweg 1, 37077 Göttingen, Germany.
Carsten
C
Meyer
Biodiversity, Macroecology and Conservation Biogeography Group, Faculty of Forest Sciences, University of Göttingen, Büsgenweg 1, 37077 Göttingen, Germany.
Holger
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4471-8236
H
Kreft
University of Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida at Gainesville, 358 Dickinson Hall, Gainesville, Florida 32611-2710, USA.
Robert
R
Guralnick
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, 165 Prospect Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA.|Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Buckhurst Road, Ascot, Berks SL5 7PY, UK.
Walter
W
Jetz
D063147:Animal Distribution; D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D016208:Databases, Factual; D038622:Internationality; D014714:Vertebrates / Q000145:classification* / Q000502:physiology*