In the present work, we use an exceptional database including 5,359 records of 101 species of Oman's terrestrial reptiles together with spatial tools to infer the spatial patterns of species richness and endemicity, to infer the habitat preference of each species and to better define conservation priorities, with especial focus on the effectiveness of the protected areas in preserving this unique arid fauna. Our results indicate that the sampling effort is not only remarkable from a taxonomic point of view, with multiple observations for most species, but also for the spatial coverage achieved. The observations are distributed almost continuously across the two-dimensional climatic space of Oman defined by the mean annual temperature and the total annual precipitation and across the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of the multivariate climatic space and are well represented within 17 out of the 20 climatic clusters grouping 10% of the explained climatic variance defined by PC1 and PC2. Species richness is highest in the Hajar and Dhofar Mountains, two of the most biodiverse areas of the Arabian Peninsula, and endemic species richness is greatest in the Jebel Akhdar, the highest part of the Hajar Mountains. Oman's 22 protected areas cover only 3.91% of the country, including within their limits 63.37% of terrestrial reptiles and 50% of all endemics. Our analyses show that large areas of the climatic space of Oman lie outside protected areas and that seven of the 20 climatic clusters are not protected at all. The results of the gap analysis indicate that most of the species are below the conservation target of 17% or even the less restrictive 12% of their total area within a protected area in order to be considered adequately protected. Therefore, an evaluation of the coverage of the current network of protected areas and the identification of priority protected areas for reptiles using reserve design algorithms are urgently needed. Our study also shows that more than half of the species are still pending of a definitive evaluation by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Allwetterzoo Münster Münster Germany

Àrea d'Herpetologia Museu de Granollers Ciències Naturals Palaudàries Granollers Spain

Asociación Herpetológica Fretum Gaditanum Mar Egeo Jerez de la Fra Spain

Breeding Centre for Endangered Arabian Wildlife Environment and Protected Areas Authority Sharjah UAE

CIBIO Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos Universidade do Porto InBio Laboratório Associado Vairão Portugal

Departamento de Biologia Faculdade de Ciencias da Universidade do Porto Porto Portugal

Departamento de Zoología Facultad de Ciencias Universidad de Granada Granada Spain

Department of Biology College of Science Sultan Qaboos University Al Khod Muscat Oman

Department of Integrative Biology Museum of Vertebrate Zoology University of California Berkeley CA United States of America

Department of Zoology National Museum Cirkusová Prague Czech Republic

Department of Zoology The Natural History Museum London United Kingdom

Escola de Natura de Parets C Galende Parets del Vallès Spain

Independent Researcher Almeria Spain

Independent Researcher Dříteč Czech Republic

Independent Researcher Granada Spain

Independent Researcher Madrid Spain

Independent Researcher Storkow Germany

Independent Researcher Wiedergeltingen Germany

Institute of Evolutionary Biology Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta Barcelona Spain

Ministry of Environment and Climate Affairs Muscat Oman

Museo Civico di Storia Naturale Carmagnola Italy

School of Molecular Sciences University of Western Australia Crawley Western Australia

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