Data files associated with: Phillips, L. M., Leihy, R. I, & S. L. Chown. Improving Species-Based Area Protection in Antarctica. In preparation.

Area protection is crucial to the conservation of the Antarctic environment. Antarctic Specially Protected Areas (ASPAs) were introduced by the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties as a conservation tool to protect regions based on certain values and criteria. One of the criteria for area protection is the type locality (the place from which a species was first described) of any species (Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, Annex V, Article 3, 2d). Yet, there is currently no list of type localities for Antarctic species, so determining whether this target is being fulfilled or not has not been possible.

We compiled a comprehensive inventory of all Antarctic terrestrial and freshwater animals, lichens, bryophytes and vascular plants that occur south of 60°S (for rationale on which taxa were included in the database, please refer to the paper methods). Species with type localities south of 60°S (i.e. the Antarctic Treaty Area) that could be identified to a high resolution (≤ 25 km^2) area were used to evaluate Antarctic type locality representation in the current ASPA network, and to propose a series of 105 candidate protected areas that would be required to protect the type localities that are currently unprotected.

Here, we publish the Antarctic Type Localities dataset (xml), code (.R), and shape files (.shp) for the proposed candidate ASPAs that could be established to protect the remaining type localities not captured within the current ASPA network.

Temporal coverage: 1753 - July 2021

Spatial coverage: Latitude: -60° (Northernmost) to -90° (Southernmost); Longitude: -180° (Westernmost) to 180° (Easternmost)