Wildlife trade is a key driver of the biodiversity crisis. Unregulated, or under-regulated wildlife trade can lead to unsustainable exploitation of wild populations. International efforts to regulate wildlife mostly miss ‘lower-value’ species, such as those imported as pets, resulting in limited knowledge of trade in groups like reptiles. Here we generate a dataset on web-based private commercial trade of reptiles to highlight the scope of the global reptile trade. We find that over 35% of reptile species are traded online. Three quarters of this trade is in species that are not covered by international trade regulation. These species include numerous endangered or range-restricted species, especially hotspots within Asia. Approximately 90% of traded reptile species and half of traded individuals are captured from the wild. Exploitation can occur immediately after scientific description, leaving new endemic species especially vulnerable. Pronounced gaps in regulation imply trade is having unknown impacts on numerous threatened species. Gaps in monitoring demand a reconsideration of international reptile trade regulations. We suggest reversing the status-quo, requiring proof of sustainability before trade is permitted.

In this horizon scan we highlight 15 emerging issues of potential relevance to global conservation in 2020. Seven relate to potentially extensive changes in vegetation or ecological systems. These changes are either relatively new, for example conversion of kelp forests to simpler macroalgal systems, or may occur in the future, for example as a result of the derivation of nanocelluose from wood or the rapid expansion of small hydropower schemes. Other topics highlight potential changes in national legislation that may have global effect on international agreements. Our panel of 23 scientists and practitioners selected these using a modified version of the Delphi technique from a long-list of 89 potential topics.

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Understanding patterns of biodiversity is crucial for developing appropriate conservation and management plans. The IUCN RedList is looked upon as a source of globally-consistent assessment of species extinction risk, including range maps as part of the extinction risk assessment. Species ranges are a central criterion in determining extinction vulnerability, and consequently apportioning conservation and research efforts. Thus, the accuracy of these maps is crucial to the effective conservation of global biodiversity. Given difficulties in acquiring sufficient, reliable point data and the need for species or diversity maps within many studies, countless papers rely on these centralized expert range maps. However, such efforts are vulnerable to errors if not carefully checked, and the drive to assess as many species as possible rather than to ensure meaningful quality assessment may drive high error rates, with huge implications for species conservation. Recent efforts to account for the over-generalization of species ranges by trimming species ranges with landcover and elevation also makes a number of assumptions on the consistency and accuracy of global data, the lack of politically-driven biases. Here, we analyse the biases present in 50768 animal IUCN and BirdLife maps and provide suggestions on how such analyses could be improved, and flag spatial and taxonomic inconsistencies to enable analysis to acknowledge the limitations of data in further analysis based on these maps. We also discuss effective ways to overcome these biases, the limits of such applications and explore alternative means of mapping diversity patterns.

Spatial patterns of biodiversity are inextricably linked to their collection methods, yet no synthesis of these patterns or their consequences exists. As such, our view of ecosystems may be incorrect, undermining countless ecological and evolutionary studies. Using 742 million records of 374,900 species, we explore the global patterns and impacts of accessibility in terrestrial and marine Systems. Pervasive sampling and observation biases exist across animals, with only 6.74% of the globe sampled, and disproportionately poor tropical sampling. High-elevations and deep-seas are comparably unknown. Over 50% of records in most groups account for under 2% of species. Citizen-science exacerbates biases, and normalizing the practice of valuing data publication is essential to bridge this gap and better represent species distributions from more distant and inaccessible areas, and provide the necessary basis for conservation and management.