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…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Awards: 1262600, DEB 1026764, DBI 0960550, 1026764
• NA
  National Aeronautics and Space Administration

  Awards: DBI 0960550, NNX11AP72G, DEB 1026764
• YU
  Yale University
• DB
  Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt
• DA
  Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst
• DF
  Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft