This dataset contains a global presence-absence matrix for 10,215 species of terrestrial squamates (lizards and snakes), constructed from the GARD 1.5 species range shapefiles. Suitable for global diversity analyses using the R package LetsR. It consists of a list including three elements (1) a presence-absence matrix for all 96x96 km global terrestrial grid cells (48800 grid cells have at least one species), (2) a raster summarizing global richness patterns, and (3) a list of species.

This dataset was constructed from the GARD 1.5 squamate species range shapefiles  (https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9s4mw6mh3) for 10,215 terrestrial species of squamates using the R package LetsR v 4.0 (Vilela and Villalobos 2015). The range shapefiles were projected onto an global Behrmann equal area projection map, and then converted into a presences absence matrix using the "lets.presab" fuinction in LetsR.   

Cited: Vilela, B., & Villalobos, F. (2015). letsR: a new R package for data handling and analysis in macroecology. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 6(10), 1229-1234. 

This dataset is designed for use with the R package LetsR (Vilela and Villalobos 2015). While the file can be opened with nearly any plain text editor, the organization of the file is such that it would be difficult to use outside of the R programming environment with LetsR. It can be read using the "readRDS" command from LetsR. If you wish to use elements of it in other programs or packages, it would be best to read the file using LetsR and then export the individual elements.