10.5061/DRYAD.WH70RXWHS
Daru, Barnabas H.
0000-0002-2115-0257
Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi
Farooq, Harith
University of Gothenburg
Antonelli, Alexandre
0000-0003-1842-9297
University of Gothenburg
Faurby, Søren
0000-0002-2974-2628
University of Gothenburg
Data from: Endemism patterns are scale dependent
Dryad
dataset
2019
Species diversity
Datasets
Random allocation
Geography
Taxa
wildlife conservation
2020-03-04T00:00:00Z
2020-03-04T00:00:00Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15921-6
2089453309 bytes
10
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Areas of endemism are important in biogeography because they capture
facets of biodiversity not represented elsewhere. However, the scales at
which they are relevant to research and conservation are poorly analysed.
Here, we calculate weighted endemism (WE) and phylogenetic endemism (PE)
separately for all birds and amphibians across the globe. We show that
scale dependence is widespread for both indices and manifests across grain
sizes, spatial extents and taxonomic treatments. Variations in taxonomic
opinions – whether species are treated by systematic ‘lumping’ or
‘splitting’ – can profoundly affect the allocation of WE hotspots. Global
patterns of PE can provide insights into complex evolutionary processes
but this congruence is lost at the continental to country extents. These
findings are explained by environmental heterogeneity at coarser grains,
and to a far lesser extent at finer resolutions. Regardless of scale, we
find widespread deficits of protection for endemism hotspots. Our study
presents a framework for assessing areas for conservation that are robust
to assumptions on taxonomy, spatial grain and extent.
Range maps from the IUCN spatial datasets