Geographic range maps for Mammal Diversity Database v1.2 taxonomy from "Expert range maps of global mammal distributions harmonised to three taxonomic authorities"

Data mirroring for long-term integrity of these critical geospatial resources.  Included here are expert geographic range maps aligned to the taxonomy of the Mammal Diversity Database (MDD) version 1.2, which was published on 24 Sept 2020 https://zenodo.org/record/4139818.  That taxonomy includes 6,485 total species, of which 103 are considered recently extinct, 20 are considered domestic extant, and 6,362 are considered wild extant (this corrects for 1 species, Capra hircus, that was incorrectly coded as 'domestic=0' rather than 'domestic=1' in the MDD v1.2).  For this mapping project, only 6,362 species from MDD v1.2 have maps -- this total:

• excludes all extinct and domestic species;
• excludes 2 species for which no spatial information was available (Nycticeius aenobarbus and Phoniscus aerosus); and
• includes 2 species (Elaphurus davidianus and Oryx dammah) that are extinct in the wild (EW) in IUCN, have recent range information and were included in the MDD as extant.

### File inventory ###

• Order-level zipped files (27 total), one for each extant order of mammals, unzips to geopackage (*.gpg) format;
• Mammalia-wide zipped file (1: "MDD_Mammalia.zip"), includes maps for all 27 orders, unzips to gpg format;
• Full taxonomy for MDD v1.2 (as published on https://zenodo.org/record/4139818) in csv format ("MDD_v1.2_all_6485species.csv"); and
• Subset of MDD v1.2 taxonomy for which range maps are here provided (6,362 species) in csv format ("mdd_spList_wFamilieswOrders_mapped_6362species.csv").

### Full citation ###

Marsh, C.J., Sica, Y.V., Burgin, C.J., Dorman, W.A., Anderson, R.C., del Toro Mijares, I., Vigneron, J.G., Barve, V., Dombrowik, V.L., Duong, M., Guralnick, R., Hart, J.A., Maypole, J.K., McCall, K., Ranipeta, A., Schuerkmann, A., Torselli, M.A., Lacher Jr, T., Mittermeier, R.A., Rylands, A.B., Sechrest, W., Wilson, D.E., Abba, A.M., Aguirre, L.F., Arroyo-Cabrales, J., Astúa, D., Baker, A.M., Braulik, G., Braun, J.K., Brito, J., Busher, P.E., Burneo, S.F., Camacho, M.A., Cavallini, P., de Almeida Chiquito, E., Cook, J.A., Cserkész, T., Csorba, G., Cuéllar Soto, E., da Cunha Tavares, V., Davenport, T.R.B., Deméré, T., Denys, C., Dickman, C.R., Eldridge, M.D.B., Fernandez-Duque, E., Francis, C.M., Frankham, G., Franklin, W.L., Freitas, T., Friend, J.A., Gadsby, E.L., Garbino, G.S.T., Gaubert, P., Giannini, N., Giarla, T., Gilchrist, J.S., Gongora, J., Goodman, S.M., Gursky-Doyen, S., Hackländer, K., Hafner, M.S., Hawkins, M., Helgen, K.M., Heritage, S., Hinckley, A., Hintsche, S., Holden, M., Holekamp, K.E., Honeycutt, R.L., Huffman, B.A., Humle, T., Hutterer, R., Ibáñez Ulargui, C., Jackson, S.M., Janecka, J., Janecka, M., Jenkins, P., Juškaitis, R., Juste, J., Kays, R., Kilpatrick, C.W., Kingston, T., Koprowski, J.L., Kryštufek, B., Lavery, T., Lee Jr, T.E., Leite, Y.L.R., Novaes, R.L.M., Lim, B.K., Lissovsky, A., López-Antoñanzas, R., López-Baucells, A., MacLeod, C.D., Maisels, F.G., Mares, M.A., Marsh, H., Mattioli, S., Meijaard, E., Monadjem, A., Morton, F.B., Musser, G., Nadler, T., Norris, R.W., Ojeda, A., Ordóñez-Garza, N., Pardiñas, U.F.J., Patterson, B.D., Pavan, A., Pennay, M., Pereira, C., Prado, J., Queiroz, H.L., Richardson, M., Riley, E.P., Rossiter, S.J., Rubenstein, D.I., Ruelas, D., Salazar-Bravo, J., Schai-Braun, S., Schank, C.J., Schwitzer, C., Sheeran, L.K., Shekelle, M., Shenbrot, G., Soisook, P., Solari, S., Southgate, R., Superina, M., Taber, A.B., Talebi, M., Taylor, P., Vu Dinh, T., Ting, N., Tirira, D.G., Tsang, S., Turvey, S.T., Valdez, R., Van Cakenberghe, V., Veron, G., Wallis, J., Wells, R., Whittaker, D., Williamson, E.A., Wittemyer, G., Woinarski, J., Zinner, D., Upham, N.S., Jetz, W., 2022. Expert range maps of global mammal distributions harmonised to three taxonomic authorities. Journal of Biogeography 49 (5): 979-992. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14330
 

### Data downloads on Map of Life ###

All range maps for the three taxonomic sources are openly available for non-commercial use through https://mol.org/datasets or at species-level at https://mol.org/species, or for bulk download at https://doi.org/10.48600/mol-7r3j-8066 (HMW), https://doi.org/10.48600/mol-zzrs-q778 (CMW) and https://doi.org/10.48600/mol-48vz-p413 (MDD).

### Abstract ###

Aim: Comprehensive, global information on species' occurrences is an essential biodiversity variable and central to a range of applications in ecology, evolution, biogeography and conservation. Expert range maps often represent a species' only available distributional information and play an increasing role in conservation assessments and macroecology. We provide global range maps for the native ranges of all extant mammal species harmonised to the taxonomy of the Mammal Diversity Database (MDD) mobilised from two sources, the Handbook of the Mammals of the World (HMW) and the Illustrated Checklist of the Mammals of the World (CMW).

Location: Global.

Taxon: All extant mammal species.

Methods: Range maps were digitally interpreted, georeferenced, error-checked and subsequently taxonomically aligned between the HMW (6253 species), the CMW (6431 species) and the MDD taxonomies (6362 species).

Results: Range maps can be evaluated and visualised in an online map browser at Map of Life (mol.org) and accessed for individual or batch download for non-commercial use.

Main conclusion: Expert maps of species' global distributions are limited in their spatial detail and temporal specificity, but form a useful basis for broad-scale characterizations and model-based integration with other data. We provide georeferenced range maps for the native ranges of all extant mammal species as shapefiles, with species-level metadata and source information packaged together in geodatabase format. Across the three taxonomic sources our maps entail, there are 1784 taxonomic name differences compared to the maps currently available on the IUCN Red List website. The expert maps provided here are harmonised to the MDD taxonomic authority and linked to a community of online tools that will enable transparent future updates and version control.

Keywords: GIS; Mammalia; biodiversity; biogeography; conservation planning; mapping; species distributions.