Location biases in ecological research on Australian terrestrial reptiles.

ABSTRACT: Understanding geographical biases in ecological research is important for conservation, planning, prioritisation and management. However, conservation efforts may be limited by data availability and poor understanding of the nature of potential spatial bias. We conduct the first continent-wide analysis of spatial bias associated with Australian terrestrial reptile ecological research. To evaluate potential research deficiencies, we used Maxent modelling to predict the distributions of 646 reptile studies published from 1972 to 2017. Based on existing distributions of 1631 individual reptile study locations, reptile species richness, proximity to universities, human footprint and location of protected areas, we found the strongest predictor of reptile research locations was proximity to uni

SUBMITTER: Piccolo RL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7298028 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature