Anchoring India’s umbrella species to biodiversity and climate gains

Area of Habitat (AOH) maps were generated for 2,187 terrestrial vertebrate species occurring in India, including mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Species range polygons were obtained from the IUCN Red List for mammals, reptiles, and amphibians, and from BirdLife International for birds. Ranges were restricted to extant and native distributions within India. For each species, unsuitable habitats were removed using Level 2 habitat classes from the IUCN habitat classification scheme, matched to a global habitat type map. Species ranges were further constrained to documented elevation limits from the IUCN Red List; where elevation information was unavailable, default global elevation limits were applied. Geometries with topological errors were corrected or excluded where reliable processing was not possible. All AOH maps were produced at 100 m spatial resolution and processed using the terra package in R. Species richness layers were derived by stacking individual AOH maps.