Meter-resolution imagery of our world and myriad biodiversity records collected through citizen scientists and automated sensors belie the fact that much of the planet's biodiversity remains undiscovered. Conservative estimates suggest only 13 to 18% of all living species may be known at this point [1][2][3][4] , although this number could be as low as 1.5% 5 . This biodiversity shortfall 6,7 strongly impedes the sustainable management of our planet's resources, as the potential ecological and economic relevance of undiscovered species remains unrecognized 8 . Here we use model-based predictions of terrestrial vertebrate species discovery to estimate future taxonomic and geographic discovery opportunities. Our model identifies distinct taxonomic and geographic unevenness in future discovery potential, with greatest opportunities for amphibians and reptiles and for Neotropical and IndoMalayan forests. Brazil, Indonesia, Madagascar, and Colombia emerge as holding greatest discovery opportunities, with a quarter of future species descriptions expected there. These findings highlight the significance of international support for taxonomic

Aim Snake faunal dissimilarity within tropical forests is not well characterized, nor are the factors underlying these patterns. Our aim was to disentangle the ecological and historical factors driving biogeographical subregions (BSR) for snakes.Location Brazilian Atlantic Forest (BAF). MethodsWe compiled 274 snake inventories to build a species-by-site matrix and used unconstrained ordination and clustering techniques to identify the number of snake BSR. We applied an interpolation method to map axes of compositional variation over the whole extent of the BAF, and then classified the compositional dissimilarity according to the number of snake BSR identified a priori. We used multinomial logistic regression models and deviance partitioning techniques to investigate the influence of contemporary climatic stability, productivity, topographic complexity, and historical climate shifts in explaining the BSR. ResultsWe identified 198 snake species organized into six BSR, three of them located along the BAF coast and the other three predominantly inland BSR. Climatic stability made the largest contribution to explaining the variability in snake BSR, followed by productivity and historical variation in climate. Topography was important only if historical variation in climate was excluded from the analysis.Main conclusions The highest rates of snake endemism within BAF were in the coastal BSR, as compared to the inland BSR that are mostly composed of open habitat specialists. Our findings suggest that the topographic complexity of the BAF acts on snake distributions not as a physical barrier, but rather as a climatic barrier, providing historical climate refuges for species living along altitudinal gradients. Overall, the predominance of climatic stability and historic variation in climate in explaining snake BSR reinforces the importance of thermoregulatory constraints in shaping the distribution of tropical ectotherm species.Dev. expl (%) = percentage of deviance explained, AICc = Akaike's information criterion corrected for small sample sizes, wAICc = AICc weight. Cstab = contemporary climatic stability, Prod = productivity, Topo = topographic complexity, Cclim = contemporary climate (Cstab + Prod), Hclim = historical variation in climate. See Methods for individual predictor abbreviation.

Environmental gradients (EG) related to climate, topography and vegetation are among the most important drivers of broad scale patterns of species richness. However, these different EG do not necessarily drive species richness in similar ways, potentially presenting synergistic associations when driving species richness. Understanding the synergism among EG allows us to address key questions arising from the effects of global climate and land use changes on biodiversity. Herein, we use variation partitioning (also know as commonality analysis) to disentangle unique and shared contributions of different EG in explaining species richness of Neotropical vertebrates. We use three broad sets of predictors to represent the environmental variability in (i) climate (annual mean temperature, temperature annual range, annual precipitation and precipitation range), (ii) topography (mean elevation, range and coefficient of variation of elevation), and (iii) vegetation (land cover diversity, standard deviation and range of forest canopy height). The shared contribution between two types of EG is used to quantify synergistic processes operating among EG, offering new perspectives on the causal relationships driving species richness. To account for spatially structured processes, we use Spatial EigenVector Mapping models. We perform analyses across groups with distinct dispersal abilities (amphibians, non-volant mammals, bats and birds) and discuss the influence of vagility on the partitioning results. Our findings indicate that broad scale patterns of vertebrate richness are mainly affected by the synergism between climate and vegetation, followed by the unique contribution of climate. Climatic factors were relatively more important in explaining species richness of good dispersers. Most of the variation in vegetation that explains vertebrate richness is climatically structured, supporting the productivity hypothesis. Further, the weak synergism between topography and vegetation urges caution when using topographic complexity as a surrogate of habitat (vegetation) heterogeneity.

:The popular knowledge about snakes, including the practices adopted in cases of snakebite, was analysed in this ethnozoological study performed in Araponga region and vicinities of Serra do Brigadeiro (Brigadeiro Mountain Range), Atlantic Forest of Minas Gerais state, southeastern Brazil. Between August and November 2008, interviews were conducted with 50 residents of rural areas of Araponga, and 20 employees of the Serra do Brigadeiro State Park (PESB). In relation to social and cultural profile, these two groups differed only on the level of education (higher among the park staff), with the same distributions for age and religion. There was also a lower level of education among older individuals, a possible reflection of improvements in the social conditions in that region, which would have provided greater access to schools in recent decades. In general, both groups demonstrated adequate knowledge about prevention and procedures in cases of snakebite (78.2% reported seeking medical attention in case of snakebite). The use of folk medicine for treatment of snakebite proved to be a practice falling into disuse, reported by approximately 21% of respondents. Most respondents (57.14%) said they did not know the difference between a poisonous and a non-poisonous snake, and 66.67% showed adequate knowledge of the season when snake encounters are more likely to happen. The "Araponga" group was more hostile concerning to possible encounters with snakes, with 43% of people saying they would kill the animal, against 5% in the "PESB" group. The educational level of the respondents was decisive in determining the kind of attitude taken against snakes, and those with higher levels of education showed to be the less hostile ones. People with lower educational levels were more likely to consider all snakes as dangerous, and they also proved to be more hostile to these animals. More contact with scientific and environmental education activities seems to have been decisive for the higher tolerance to snakes by the "PESB" group. The implementation of activities of environmental education for the population of Araponga can increase the awareness of the importance of snakes, instructing those who still consider them intrinsically harmful. Resumo: O conhecimento popular sobre as serpentes, incluindo as práticas adotadas em casos de acidentes ofídicos, foi abordado neste estudo etnozoológico realizado na região de Araponga e entorno da Serra do Brigadeiro, Mata Atlântica do Estado de Minas Gerais, região Sudeste do Brasil. Entre agosto e novembro de 2008 foram realizadas entrevistas com 50 moradores da zona rural de Araponga e 20 funcionários do Parque Estadual da Serra do Brigadeiro (PESB). Em relação ao perfil cultural e social, os grupos avaliados diferiram entre si somente quanto ao nível de escolaridade (maior entre os funcionários do parque), apresentando as mesmas distribuições em relação a idade e religião. Também se verificou menor nível de escolaridade entre os indivíduos mais velhos. Em geral, ambos os grupos d...

Apresentamos uma lista de anfíbios e répteis de uma região ao norte do complexo serrano da Mantiqueira, sob denominação local de Serra do Brigadeiro. Esta região compreende um remanescente de Mata Atlântica com destaque para o Parque Estadual da Serra do Brigadeiro, unidade de conservação com aproximadamente 15 mil ha nos municípios de Araponga, Divino, Ervália, Fervedouro, Miradouro, Muriaé, Pedra Bonita e Sericita, estado de Minas Gerais, sudeste do Brasil. Através da adoção de métodos complementares como o uso de armadilhas de interceptação e queda e postos de coleta, além de métodos convencionais de busca ativa, encontros ocasionais e registros em coleção científica, a presente lista amplia o conhecimento sobre a herpetofauna dessa região. Nós registramos 98 espécies da herpetofauna, sendo 57 de anuros, um gimnofiono, nove lagartos, uma anfisbênia, 29 serpentes e um quelônio. Embora nenhuma espécie de anfíbio encontrada seja considerada ameaçada de extinção em Minas Gerais, no Brasil ou pela IUCN, 11 espécies (18,96%) são consideradas como Deficiente de Dados. Verifica-se um alto número de espécies exclusivas da Mata Atlântica (46,55%) ou de distribuição restrita (20,68%). Destaca-se o encontro da perereca Gastrotheca ernestoi e a rã Megaelosia apuana, respectivamente o primeiro e segundo registro desses gêneros para Minas Gerais. A cecília Luetkenotyphlus brasiliensis também é redescoberta. Entre os répteis, pode-se destacar a presença do cágado Hydromedusa maximiliani, que aparece como vulnerável nas listas vermelhas de Minas Gerais e da IUCN. Sessenta por cento das espécies de répteis apresentam ampla distribuição na Mata Atlântica, e a presença das serpentes Echinanthera melanostigma e E. undulata, são importantes como, respectivamente, o segundo e terceiro registro dessas espécies para Minas Gerais.

Pseudoautotomy (no spontaneous tail breakage without regeneration) occurs in the snakes Drymoluber brazili (Gomes, 1918) and Drymoluber dichrous (Peters, 1863) throughout their geographic range. Examination of 197 specimens of D. dichrous and 60 D. brazili show, respectively, a frequency of tail breakage (FTB) in 26% and 40% of specimens, similar or higher than observed for most species with pseudoautotomy. There is no sexual difference in FTB for D. brazili, and no relationship between tail breakage and snout–vent length (SVL). For D. dicrous, tail breakage is more frequently observed in males when specimens are <710 mm SVL, but for longer specimens, the FTB is higher in females; this strange pattern may not be explained by a single hypothesis. The FTB does not vary significantly between disjunct populations of D. dichrous, suggesting that they are subject to similar predation pressures and escape rates, or minor or no effect of habitat structure on predation risk. The FTB increases with SVL in D. dichrous (but not in D. brazili, probably due to sample size), which is an indication that as the snake grows, the chance of being injured increases and partial tail loss becomes an efficient defense. The multiple tail break hypothesis is not supported for the genus Drymoluber Amaral, 1930, remaining restricted to taxa with specialized pseudoautotomy.

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More than two million species have been described so far, but our knowledge on most taxa remains scarce or inexistent, and the available biodiversity data is often taxonomically, phylogenetically and spatially biased. Unevenness in research effort across species or regions can interact with data biases and compromise our ability to properly study and conserve biodiversity. Herein, we assess the influence of biological, conservation, geographic and socioeconomic correlates of reptile research effort globally and across six biogeographic realms. We combine bibliometric data from the Scopus database with trait-based approaches and provide research effort information for 10 531 reptile species, modelling it as a function of 10 putative correlates of species-level variation in research effort through negative binomial generalised mixed effect models. We show that reptile research effort is highly skewed toward certain taxa and regions, such as turtles, crocodiles, tuatara, viperids, pythons and some anguimorph lizards, as well as for temperate compared to tropical regions. Our findings indicate that greater research attention is directed towards large-sized and early described reptile species, particularly those whose geographic range overlap with biodiversity institutions. Although we demonstrate that biological and socioeconomic factors more strongly affect reptile research effort variation, geography and conservation-related factors also matter. Global patterns are mostly consistent, but variation across realms were observed and likely reflects differences in socioeconomic attributes as well as in the amount of species to be studied in each realm. Directing researchers and citizen scientists' attention toward understudied taxa will contribute to alleviate this biased biodiversity knowledge, although the sheer amount of species in tropical regions inevitably makes it a long-term solution. Performing comparative studies across species with similar levels of research attention could represent a more immediate and feasible alternative.