This web system provides biodiversity maps of vascular plants (woody, herbaceous andfern species) and stony corals, which serve as foundational taxa of ecosystems, and ofvertebrates (mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, and freshwater and coastal fish species)
functioning as community umbrellas. Using distribution datasets of all individual species
occurring in Japan, which we have been compiling for a decade, we visualize assorted
profiles of biodiversity at the resolution of 1 km x 1 km※.
※ A few map layers currently have lower resolutions

Organisms expand species-specific geographic ranges from areas where they firstlyoriginated as new species. In regard to dispersals and consequent expansions of
distribution range, species are under constraints of geography (ocean and mountainboundaries), biotic and abiotic conditions (ex. harsh climates), and a geographic
distribution of a certain species is, therefore, a manifestation of evolutionary andecological trajectories of the species. Such distribution range is not merely a static
property of the species, but it shifts the area dynamically responding to environmental
changes. Importantly, such dynamic changes of the range by expansion and contraction do
not follow the nation and administrative boundaries. Hence, definitions of natives andexotics rely partly on qualitative and/or subjective criteria. J-BMP follows definitions ofexotic species by "Invasive species of Japan (National Institute for EnvironmentalStudies)," which includes those which had naturalized before the human history as
well. In J-BMP, we regard species as native to Japan only if it occurs in Japanand is not listed in the database of invasive species as exotics from abroad.

Rare species have been paid special attentions in biodiversityconservations, and species vulnerable to human activities andenvironmental changes are of particular importance known as
endangered species. Ministry of environment Japan issues
the red-list of endangered species of various taxonomic
groups based on extinction risk assessments. Conservation
planning must take endangered species into account. J-BMP
vizualizes the subset diversity for endangered species listed
in the Red Data Book. Beside J-BMP, we also collated thesize of species distribution range with red data books issued
by prefecture governments and evaluated the validity of redlist criteria.

Organisms originate from various phylogenetic clades. An extinction of a particularspecies could be considered analogous to losing the entire history of millions of years thatthe species has spent for its speciation and the evolution. For J-BMP, we calculated thedistinctiveness (uniqueness) of species evolution for all the individual native species ofvascular plants and vertebrates using phylogenetic information (Isaac et al. 2007). Then,we visualized geographic patterns of the evolutionary distinctiveness for each taxonomic
group by taking assemblage mean of the distinctiveness at 1 km x 1 km resolution acrossJapan. The maps exhibit evolutionarily unique areas where highly distinctive species
occur. While species richness maps are regarded as a product of evolutions, the maps ofevolutionary distinctiveness are the manifestation of the evolutionary histories which areequivalent to the processes of proliferating species richness.

For J-BMP, we have been collecting distribution records from various data sources (suchas a variety of articles, specimen data, and electronic data), and developed the database bycompiling species names and observation geolocations. Abundance of observation datahighly varies among geographic regions and taxonomic groups. Because of the nature ofcontrasting detectability among organisms in the field and also difference in popularities
among them as study materials, sufficiency of observation records (ie, samplingcoverage) shows a remarkable variance. Likewise, there is a contrast in observation
abundances among different geographic regions due to varying accessibilities to theregions. Such differences in data availabilities among regions and taxa associate withcontrasting accuracies in predicting species distributions. Therefore, in further datacompilations we intensively spend efforts in filling region and taxon specific shortfalls.
For those regions and taxa which certainly lack information, however, further fieldsurveys and descriptive studies are urgent tasks for conservation biodiversity.
Toward this end, J-BMP provides maps of sampling coverage (completeness ofobservations) based on the biodiversity estimation method that delineate where and which
biodiversity information suffers severe shortfalls.

■ References■

Chao A., Kubota Y., Zelený D., Chiu C-H., Li C-F., Kusumoto B., Yasuhara M., Thorn S., WeiC-H., Costello M.J., Colwell R.K. (2020) Quantifying sample completeness and comparing
diversities among assemblages. Ecological Research, 35: 292-314
https://esj-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1440-1703.12102
Isaac N.J.B., Turvey S.T., Collen B., Waterman C., Baillie J.E.M. (2007) Mammals on the edge:
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https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0000296
National Institute for Environmental Studies. Invasive species of Japan.
https://www.nies.go.jp/biodiversity/invasive/index_en.html
Databasing of occurrence observation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=42&v=XaPFb_Gzvhs&feature=emb_logo
Komori O., Eguchi S., Saigusa Y., Kusumoto B. & Kubota Y. (2020) Sampling bias correctionin species distribution models by quasi-linear Poisson point process. Ecological Informatics, 55:
101015.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1574954119303267?via%3Dihub
Guisan A., Thuiller W., Zimmermann N.E. (2017) Habitat suitability and distribution models
with applications in R. Cambridge university press. DOI:10.1017/9781139028271
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/habitat-suitability-and-distribution-models/
A17F74A3418DBF9ADA191A04C35187F9

琉球大学理学部

久保田康裕 研究室

Lab. Biodiversity & Conservation Biogeography
University of the Ryukyus, Japan

ThinkNature#536, Faculty of science,
University of the Ryukyus,
1 Senbaru, Okinawa,
JAPAN 903-0213