ARPHA Preprints, doi: 10.3897/arphapreprints.e107634

Biodiversity atlas of the special area of conservation Montesinho/Nogueira, Portugal

Nuno Garcia^‡, João Campos^‡, Daniel Silva^‡, João Alírio^§, Lia Duarte^§, Salvador Arenas-Castro^|, Isabel Pôças^¶, Armando Loureiro^#, Ana Teodoro^§, Neftalí Sillero^‡

‡ CICGE - Centro de Investigação em Ciências GeoEespaciais, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal§ Department of Geosciences, Environment and Land Planning, Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal| Area of Ecology – Department of Botany, Ecology and Plant Physiology, Faculty of Sciences (University of Cordoba), Córdoba, Spain¶ CoLAB ForestWISE - Collaborative Laboratory for Integrated Forest & Fire Management, Porto, Portugal# Institute for the Conservation of Nature and Forests (ICNF), Lisboa, Portugal

Corresponding author: Nuno Garcia ( nunogarcia8@gmail.com )

This is an open access preprint distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Citation: Garcia N, Campos J, Silva D, Alírio J, Duarte L, Arenas-Castro S, Pôças I, Loureiro A, Teodoro A, Sillero N (2023) Biodiversity atlas of the special area of conservation Montesinho/Nogueira, Portugal. ARPHA Preprints. https://doi.org/10.3897/arphapreprints.e107634

Abstract

The special area of conservation Montesinho/Nogueira (PTCON0002) is a key area for conserving biodiversity in the Iberian Peninsula. Covering an area of approximately 1081 km² in the northeast of Portugal mainland, the PTCON0002 is home to a wide range of biodiversity, including several endemic and endangered species, and priority habitats. Despite its ecological significance and importance for conservation, there is a lack of publicly available biodiversity data, which urges the need to create a comprehensive and up-to-date biodiversity dataset for the PTCON0002.

To bridge the knowledge gap on biodiversity in PTCON0002, we undertook a thorough data collection process, such as species occurrence records and conservation status information at regional (Portugal) and European levels, from multiple sources. We collected and compiled this information for PTCON0002 resulting in a total of 31 871 records with 1 312 documented species. In addition, we developed an easy-to-navigate web-based geographic information system (Web GIS). In this article, we present an in-depth report on the process of compiling and preparing data, as well as the development and design of our Web GIS to increase awareness and enhance understanding of the importance of preserving biodiversity in PTCON0002.

Keywords

Biodiversity conservation, biodiversity dataset, conservation status, open science, occurrence records, species distributions, web GIS.