We used the Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science (WOS) database to retrieve literature (accessed Jun. 19, 2013). Two searches were conducted, whose results were combined for analysis: the first, to identify publications that are directly relevant to spatial conservation decision-making (search topic = “systematic conservation planning” OR “reserve selection” OR “reserve design” OR “reserve network design” OR “conservation assessment” OR “spatial optimization” OR “spatial conservation prioritization”) and the second, to identify publications regarding important biodiversity areas (search topic = global AND biodiversity AND (“priority area” OR “priority areas” OR prioritization OR hotspot)). To identify the state-of-the-art, we concentrated on publications published during 2010-2012: these should be the ones most relevant for the decision-makers, as they utilize the latest methods and most up-to-date data of distributions of biodiversity features. Additionally, we used the same two search phrases to identify all articles published in five high-profile journals (Science, Nature, PNAS, PLOS-Biology, and Ecology letters) between 2000 and 2010: the motivation of this search was to control for potential bias in recent literature, by verifying that there were no slightly older studies in top journals that would have succeeded in developing data-rich, high resolution biodiversity analyses.