Biodiversity and Conservation Planning of the Amphibians and Reptiles in the Western Mediterranean Basi

Given the current global biodiversity crisis, prioritizing conservation areas that maximize species representation and enable persistence has been a major goal of systematic conservation planning. Despite the progresses in the field, there are still challenges needed to be overcome.;This thesis aims to address some unresolved issues in conservation planning, by using the Western Mediterranean region as study area and the amphibians and reptiles occurring there as biological models. This thesis contributed to the knowledge and understanding of the distribution of amphibians and reptiles in the Western Mediterranean region. Field sampling in Morocco increased the number of known species occurrences. Species distribution models were developed to predict the occurrences in under-sampled areas, and to improve the understanding on relationships between species ranges and environmental conditions.;The consequences of using different types of distribution data on the performance of reserve selection algorithms were analysed. Several scenarios were simulated, including variable proportions of species distribution data, conservation targets and costs. The recommended type of data to use varies according to scenarios, but data sets with both observed and predicted distributions generally provided good solutions in most circumstances.;Novel approaches were developed to incorporate evolutionary processes into conservation planning, through surrogate use for both the neutral and adaptive components of genetic diversity. The comparison of the results when incorporating or not evolutionary processes showed reduced spatially congruence, which calls for a need of a paradigm shift in conservation planning.;Issues of how to prioritize areas for conservation while accounting for species range shifts and the uncertainty inherent to those predictions were tackled by developing innovative approaches. Priority areas for the conservation of amphibians and reptiles robust to both range shifts and uncertainty were identified.;Finally, future research prospects in the field of conservation planning were identified and discussed.;Biodiversity, amphibians, reptiles, Iberian Peninsula, Morocco, systematic conservation planning, species distribution models, evolutionary processes, climate change, uncertainty.