Abstract Legal and illegal wildlife trade is a multibillion dollar industry that is driving several species toward extinction. Even though wildlife trade permeates the Tree of Life, most analyses to date focused on the trade of a small selection of charismatic vertebrate species. Given that vertebrate taxa represent only 3% of described species, this is a significant bias that prevents the development of comprehensive conservation strategies. In this short contribution, we discuss the significance of global wildlife trade considering the full diversity of organisms for which data are available in the IUCN database. We emphasize the importance of being fast and effective in filling the knowledge gaps about non-vertebrate life forms, in order to achieve an in-depth understanding of global trading patterns across the full canopy of the Tree of Life, and not just its most appealing twig.

中文翻译：

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全球野生动物贸易渗透到生命之树


摘要 合法和非法的野生动物贸易是一个价值数十亿美元的产业，正在导致一些物种走向灭绝。尽管野生动物贸易渗透到生命之树，但迄今为止大多数分析都集中在少数有魅力的脊椎动物物种的贸易上。鉴于脊椎动物类群仅占所描述物种的 3%，这是一个严重的偏见，阻碍了综合保护策略的制定。在这篇简短的文章中，我们讨论了全球野生动物贸易的重要性，考虑到 IUCN 数据库中提供的生物体的全部多样性。我们强调快速有效地填补有关非脊椎动物生命形式的知识空白的重要性，以便深入了解整个生命之树的全球贸易模式，而不仅仅是其最具吸引力的领域枝条。