Expert range maps of global mammal distributions harmonised to three taxonomic authorities

Marsh, Charles J.; Sica, Yanina V.; Burgin, Connor J.; Dorman, Wendy A.; Anderson, Robert C.; del Toro Mijares, Isabel; Vigneron, Jessica G.; Gilchrist, Jason; et al.

Abstract

Aim
Comprehensive, global information on species' occurrences is an essential biodiversity variable and central to a range of applications in ecology, evolution, biogeography and conservation. Expert range maps often represent a species' only available distributional information and play an increasing role in conservation assessments and macroecology. We provide global range maps for the native ranges of all extant mammal species harmonised to the taxonomy of the Mammal Diversity Database (MDD) mobilised from two sources, the Handbook of the Mammals of the World (HMW) and the Illustrated Checklist of the Mammals of the World (CMW).

Location
Global.

Taxon
All extant mammal species.

Methods
Range maps were digitally interpreted, georeferenced, error-checked and subsequently taxonomically aligned between the HMW (6253 species), the CMW (6431 species) and the MDD taxonomies (6362 species).

Results
Range maps can be evaluated and visualised in an online map browser at Map of Life (mol.org) and accessed for individual or batch download for non-commercial use.

Main conclusion
Expert maps of species' global distributions are limited in their spatial detail and temporal specificity, but form a useful basis for broad-scale characterizations and model-based integration with other data. We provide georeferenced range maps for the native ranges of all extant mammal species as shapefiles, with species-level metadata and source information packaged together in geodatabase format. Across the three taxonomic sources our maps entail, there are 1784 taxonomic name differences compared to the maps currently available on the IUCN Red List website. The expert maps provided here are harmonised to the MDD taxonomic authority and linked to a community of online tools that will enable transparent future updates and version control.

Citation

Marsh, C. J., Sica, Y. V., Burgin, C. J., Dorman, W. A., Anderson, R. C., del Toro Mijares, I., …et al. (2022). Expert range maps of global mammal distributions harmonised to three taxonomic authorities. Journal of Biogeography, 49(5), 979-992. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14330

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 13, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Mar 27, 2022
• Publication Date: 2022-05
• Deposit Date: May 30, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: May 31, 2022
• Print ISSN: 0305-0270
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 49
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 979-992
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14330
• Keywords: biodiversity, biogeography, conservation planning, GIS, Mammalia, mapping, species distributions
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2875282