Synthesis of the biodiversity knowledge base: Towards a global database of terrestrial vertebrate distributions

We propose a working group of ecologists, species experts and NGO representatives to establish a synthesis of global terrestrial vertebrate distributions. Distributions of vertebrates have been mapped by various authors and institutions at different taxonomic and geographic extent, resolution and accuracy. The amount of information and the techniques to handle large quantities of spatial data have now reached a level, which would allow data synthesis for this group at a global scale. The aims of the proposed working group are to facilitate accessibility of currently non-public datasets, to identify and act on filling the remaining gaps of distributional knowledge, and to analyze the resulting databases. The benefits are many-fold. The synthesis will enable standardized quantification of threat of extinction from small range size alone for all terrestrial vertebrates. It will boost efficiency of large-scale conservation priority setting by an unbiased identification of patterns of between-site complementarity in species representation. It will allow rapid assessment of vertebrate diversity of regions under threat of change. It will act as a coarse-resolution basis for deductive modeling of species' fine-scale distribution. Furthermore it will allow methodologically rigorous scrutiny of traditional hypotheses of determinants of species distributions and is likely to trigger significant advancement of the field of large-scale ecology. The proposed working group shall act as a base for both the necessary data synthesis and subsequent collaborative analysis and dissemination of the compiled data.