We analyzed 769 242 occurrence records for 115 424 species of terrestrial arthropods, from three biodiversity repositories (Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), Natural History Museum, London, and “Sistema de Informação Distribuído para Coleções Biológicas” (SpeciesLink)), to test the use of global-scale data points for quantitative assessments of areas of endemism. The data include Insecta (105,941 species), Arachnida (7984 species), Myriapoda (1229) and terrestrial crustaceans (270 Branchiopoda). The species were assigned to 14 543 higher taxonomic groups because such groups often characterize larger areas of endemism. Putative areas of endemism were visualized as sets of cells displaying unique groups of species without the assumption of hierarchical relationships. Yet, the use of 10° grid cells recovered many large areas broadly corresponding to biogeographic Regions (Nearctic, Neotropical, Panamanian, Palaearctic, Afrotropical, Australian, Oceanian and Oriental) albeit with the limits poorly defined. An analysis of 5° grids resulted in 306 sets included in the different biogeographic Realms: Afrotropical, Australian, Madagascan, Nearctic, Neotropical, Oceanian, Oriental, Palaearctic, Saharo-Arabian and Sino-Japanese. The Panamanian Realm comprises 89 partly overlapping sets, crossing the Nearctic and Neotropical boundaries. A total of 7338 species of Insecta were endemic to some areas (Sino-Japanese, Afrotropical, Panamanian, Palaearctic, among others), followed by Arachnida (412 spp) and 105 species in other clades ranked as “classes”. Six sets were supported only by genera, except for Panamanian sets that were supported by genera and families. Many of the species in the dataset are included in IUCN red lists, but probably most of those have distributions more restricted than global areas of endemism; only 102 appear as endemic to some area (Neartic, Madagascan, Panamanian, Afrotropical, among others). The results show that data from global databases can be used to identify areas of endemism on a worldwide basis but—owing to their incompleteness—only at a relatively coarse level. At the level of resolution currently allowed by such databases, such global studies are only complementary to studies where areas are determined subjectively by systematists (instead of actual point records), or studies using point records in datasets for specific taxonomic groups curated and compiled by specialists.

中文翻译：

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世界节肢动物分布数据的特有性分析支持生物地理区域和许多已建立的细分

我们分析了来自三个生物多样性资料库（全球生物多样性信息机构 (GBIF)、伦敦自然历史博物馆和“Sistema de Informação Distribuído para Coleções Biológicas” (SpeciesLink)）的 115 424 种陆生节肢动物的 769 242 条发生记录，以测试使用全球规模的数据点对特有地区进行定量评估。数据包括昆虫纲（105,941 种）、蛛形纲（7984 种）、多足纲（1229 种）和陆生甲壳类动物（270 种鳃足纲）。该物种被分配到 14 543 个更高的分类群中，因为这些群通常具有较大的特有区域。假定的特有区域被可视化为显示独特物种群的细胞组，而没有假设等级关系。然而，使用 10° 网格单元恢复了与生物地理区域（近北、新热带、巴拿马、古北、非洲热带、澳大利亚、大洋洲和东方）广泛对应的许多大区域，尽管边界定义不明确。对 5° 网格的分析得出 306 组包含在不同的生物地理领域中：非洲热带、澳大利亚、马达加斯加、近北、新热带、大洋洲、东方、古北、撒哈拉-阿拉伯和中日。巴拿马领域包括 89 个部分重叠的集合，跨越近北冰带和新热带边界。共有 7338 种昆虫纲是某些地区（中日、非洲热带、巴拿马、古北界等）的特有种，其次是蛛形纲（412 种）和 105 种其他进化枝被列为“类”。六套仅由属支持，除了由属和科支持的巴拿马集。数据集中的许多物种都包含在 IUCN 红色名录中，但可能其中大多数的分布比全球特有区域更受限制；只有 102 种似乎是某些地区的特有种（Neartic、马达加斯加、巴拿马、Afrotropical 等）。结果表明，来自全球数据库的数据可用于识别全球范围内的特有地区，但由于其不完整，只能在相对粗略的水平上进行识别。在此类数据库目前允许的分辨率水平上，此类全球研究仅是对由系统学家主观确定区域（而不是实际点记录）的研究，或使用由专家策划和编译的特定分类群数据集中的点记录的研究的补充.