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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.

SUBMITTER: Grattarola F

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7745038 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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

Grattarola Florencia F Martínez-Lanfranco Juan A JA Botto Germán G Naya Daniel E DE Maneyro Raúl R Mai Patricia P Hernández Daniel D Laufer Gabriel G Ziegler Lucía L González Enrique M EM da Rosa Inés I Gobel Noelia N González Andrés A González Javier J Rodales Ana L AL Pincheira-Donoso Daniel D

Scientific reports 20201216 1

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. Wit ...[more]

PMID: 33328562

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Project description:With the ongoing crisis of biodiversity loss and limited resources for conservation, the concept of biodiversity hotspots has been useful in determining conservation priority areas. However, there has been limited research into how temporal variability in biodiversity may influence conservation area prioritization. To address this information gap, we present an approach to evaluate the temporal consistency of biodiversity hotspots in large marine ecosystems. Using a large scale, public monitoring dataset collected over an eight year period off the US Pacific Coast, we developed a methodological approach for avoiding biases associated with hotspot delineation. We aggregated benthic fish species data from research trawls and calculated mean hotspot thresholds for fish species richness and Shannon's diversity indices over the eight year dataset. We used a spatial frequency distribution method to assign hotspot designations to the grid cells annually. We found no areas containing consistently high biodiversity through the entire study period based on the mean thresholds, and no grid cell was designated as a hotspot for greater than 50% of the time-series. To test if our approach was sensitive to sampling effort and the geographic extent of the survey, we followed a similar routine for the northern region of the survey area. Our finding of low consistency in benthic fish biodiversity hotspots over time was upheld, regardless of biodiversity metric used, whether thresholds were calculated per year or across all years, or the spatial extent for which we calculated thresholds and identified hotspots. Our results suggest that static measures of benthic fish biodiversity off the US West Coast are insufficient for identification of hotspots and that long-term data are required to appropriately identify patterns of high temporal variability in biodiversity for these highly mobile taxa. Given that ecological communities are responding to a changing climate and other environmental perturbations, our work highlights the need for scientists and conservation managers to consider both spatial and temporal dynamics when designating biodiversity hotspots.

Dataset Information

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

Publications

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

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