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Predicting distributions of known and unknown reptile species in Madagascar

Nature volume 426, pages 837–841 (2003)Cite this article

Abstract

Despite the importance of tropical biodiversity1, informative species distributional data are seldom available for biogeographical study or setting conservation priorities2,3. Modelling ecological niche distributions of species offers a potential soluion4,5,6,7; however, the utility of old locality data from museums, and of more recent remotely sensed satellite data, remains poorly explored, especially for rapidly changing tropical landscapes. Using 29 modern data sets of environmental land coverage and 621 chameleon occurrence localities from Madagascar (historical and recent), here we demonstrate a significant ability of our niche models in predicting species distribution. At 11 recently inventoried sites, highest predictive success (85.1%) was obtained for models based only on modern occurrence data (74.7% and 82.8% predictive success, respectively, for pre-1978 and all data combined). Notably, these models also identified three intersecting areas of over-prediction that recently yielded seven chameleon species new to science. We conclude that ecological niche modelling using recent locality records and readily available environmental coverage data provides informative biogeographical data for poorly known tropical landscapes, and offers innovative potential for the discovery of unknown distributional areas and unknown species.

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Figure 1: Ecological niche distribution models for 11 chameleon species in Madagascar.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Malagasy authorities and the University of Antananarivo Department of Animal Biology for their assistance. Fieldwork (C.J.R and R.A.N) was supported by Conservation International, Earthwatch, the National Geographic Society, the US National Science Foundation and the World Wide Fund for Nature. This work was supported by NASA and the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, New York, 10024-5192, USA

    Christopher J. Raxworthy & Ned Horning

  2. Instituto de Biología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico City, 04510, Mexico

    Enrique Martinez-Meyer & Miguel A. Ortega-Huerta

  3. Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48109-1079, USA

    Ronald A. Nussbaum & Gregory E. Schneider

  4. Natural History Museum & Biodiversity Research Center, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, 66045-2454, USA

    A. Townsend Peterson

  5. Biodiversity Research Center, The University of Kansas,

    A. Townsend Peterson

Authors
  1. Christopher J. Raxworthy
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  2. Enrique Martinez-Meyer
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  3. Ned Horning
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  4. Ronald A. Nussbaum
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  7. A. Townsend Peterson
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Correspondence to Christopher J. Raxworthy.

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Raxworthy, C., Martinez-Meyer, E., Horning, N. et al. Predicting distributions of known and unknown reptile species in Madagascar. Nature 426, 837–841 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02205

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