Priority areas for conservation of and research focused on terrestrial vertebrates

Abstract

Effective conservation policies require comprehensive knowledge on biodiversity. However, knowledge shortfalls still remain, hindering our possibilities to improve decision making and built such policies. During the last two decades, conservationists have made great efforts to allocate resources as efficiently as possible but have rarely considered the idea that if research investments are also strategically allocated, it would likely fill knowledge gaps while simultaneously improving conservation actions. Therefore, prioritizing areas where both conservation and research actions could be conducted becomes a critical endeavor that can further maximize the return on investment. Relying on conservation planning tools and geographical distributions of amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles we suggest and compare priority areas for conservation and research focused on terrestrial vertebrates worldwide. We also evaluate the degree of human disturbance within both types of global priority areas. While the spatial concordance between priority conservation and research areas was low, comprising 0.36% of the world's land area where both priorities overlap, such consensus areas represent a unique opportunity for simultaneously conserving and acquiring knowledge for threatened and data deficient species of vertebrates. In this combined area (0.36% of the world's land), it would be possible to protect almost half of the currently threatened species and to gather biological information for nearly 42% of the known data deficient species. We also found that 6199 protected areas worldwide are already located in such places, although only 35% of them have strict conservation purposes. We have taken a first step towards promoting a positive feedback between filling knowledge shortfalls and defining spatial conservation priorities, aimed to help the strategic allocation of conservation and research resources at a global scale. While the picture is not the most encouraging yet, joint efforts are possible and should be fostered to save vertebrate species from our own ignorance and from their extinction. Article impact statement: If research investments were strategically allocated, knowledge gaps could be filled and conservation actions improved. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved