ReptIslands: Mediterranean islands and their reptile fauna

The Mediterranean region is a biodiversity hotspot, hosts a large number of reptile species and has been the focus of detailed biodiversity inventories in the last decades. We gathered a dataset with detailed information on the geographic information of a large number of islands in the Mediterranean basin and Macaronesia, and summarizing the data on reptile distribution on these islands. Location: Islands from the Mediterranean Basin, from the Atlantic Ocean within the Mediterranean biogeographical region, and from Macaronesia (Canary and Savage Islands, Azores, Madeira, Cape Verde). Taxon: Reptiles (squamates and turtles). Methods: We first developed a geographic database describing the main islands of the study region, and then gathered information on reptile occurrence on islands from 394 bibliographic sources, including atlases, published papers and the grey literature. Through a critical review of these sources, we also obtained available information on the status of populations (native, island endemic, non-native) and on the reliability of occurrence data. We report basic geographic information from 1875 islands covering the whole study area and with a very broad range of geographical features. We gathered 4156 records of reptile occurrence on islands representative of 198 taxonomic units; information on population status was available for 85% of records. The database provides a key resource for biogeographical analyses, and can also serve as backbone for evolutionary analyses and for conservation studies. Furthermore, the availability of a large database on island features can also be useful for biogeographers working on other taxonomic groups. More data are certainly required for some geographic areas, to ascertain the status (e.g. native vs non-native) of many populations, and to understand the interplay between natural and human-driven processes. ReptIslands includes a total of three comma-delimited data files. 1) Island_features.csvThis file contains the names of islands, alternative names, geographic coordinates (decimal degrees, WGS84), country, archipelago name and basic geographic information: surface area (km2), and maximum elevation. 2) Reptile_records.csvThis file reports the reptile records, along with information on the status of the populations, the references, and some notes for the most controversial cases. Specifically, we report:a) Species name according to the Reptile Database version 14.In some cases, nomenclatural issues exist, particularly when recent nomenclatural changes occurred, or when closely related species cannot be easily identified through morphology. All these cases are highlighted as: - sp.: unidentified species within genus; - s.l.: sensu latu, referring to a species complex - c.f.: species identification is uncertain in absence of more accurate (e.g. genetic) data - sp. nova: still undescribed species.b) Type of record (Direct observation by the authors in the references / reported (e.g. in review papers))c) Occurrence (Present / extinct / dubious / possibly wrong)d) Status (Native / Island endemic / probably native / non-native / probably non-native).e) references (the number refer to the number in the table of references)d) additional notes 3) References.csvPlease note that openign this file with MS excel may result in errors in the spelling of author's names. No issues if the file is opened with text readers (e.g. datapad) or with LibreOffice