Biodiversity information is plagued with shortfalls, limitations and gaps in the data of all aspects of relevance to understand ecological and evolutionary patterns and processes. These shortfalls that lead to biased biodiversity estimates, preventing a comprehensive understanding of biodiversity patterns, and jeopardizing the effective implementation of data-driven conservation strategies. In our review setting up the basis of the study of shortfalls (see here) we already identified the interactions between shortfalls as one of the key limitations to deal with in order to improve our effectiveness in unveiling biodiversity trends. In this paper we discuss the potential interactions between the shorfalls in the knowledge on species’ taxonomy, geographical distribution and phylogenetic relationships (known as Lineean, Wallacean and Darwinian shortfalls). When new species are described, species diversity patterns based on phylogenies are less affected than those based on richness. In this context, solving the Darwinian shortfall will lead to more robust evaluations of macroecological and biogeographic patterns. However, Latitudinal Taxonomic Gradients provide an interesting framework to explore how uneven knowledge about species taxonomy and geographical distribution link the Linnean, Wallacean, and Darwinian shortfalls and affect the evaluation of diversification patterns. You can read the article at https://jhortal.com/project/diniz-filho-et-al-front-biogeogr-2023-macroecological-links-between-shortfalls/
About The Author
Joaquín Hortal
I am a biogeographer with broad interests in macroecology, community ecology, island biogeography, insect ecology, evolution, and biodiversity research. My main research aim is to determine why biodiversity – and in particular community structure – is geographically distributed the way it is, and to identify the processes that domain the spatial and temporal dynamics of ecological assemblages. I work as Scientific Researcher at the Department of Biogeography and Global Change of the Natural History Museum in Madrid (MNCN), a research institute of the Spanish Scientific Council (CSIC). I am also External Professor at the Departamento de Ecologia of the Federal University of Goiás (UFG) in Brazil, and Associate Researcher of the Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes (cE3c) of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon in Portugal.
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I am a biogeographer and community ecologist, working as scientific researcher at the Department of Biogeography and Global Change of the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (CSIC).
I am also scientific collaborator at the Postgraduate Course on Ecology and Evolution of the Universidade Federal de Goiás and the Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes (cE3c) of the Universidade de Lisboa, and member of eBryo – Research Group on Experimental Bryology.