Biodiversity hotspot

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A biodiversity hotspot is a biogeographic region that is both a significant reservoir of biodiversity and is threatened with destruction. The biodiversity hotspots were originally identified by Dr. Norman Myers in two articles in The Environmentalist (1998 & 1990) and revised in subsequent articles ^[1] ^[2]. The term biodiversity hotspot specifically refers to 34 areas around the world that have lost at least 70% of their original habitat, and contain more than 1500 endemic vascular plant species. The remaining natural habitat in these biodiversity hotspots amounts to just 1.4 percent of the land surface of the planet, yet supports nearly 60 percent of the world's plant, bird, mammal, reptile, and amphibian species.

The biodiversity hotspots have been adopted by Conservation International as a major focus for their global conservation efforts (they also target the High Biodiversity Wilderness Areas, and the Key Marine Regions). Through their efforts, and through additional funding from the Global Environmental Fund, the MacArthur Foundation, the Moore Foundation and the World Bank, the biodiversity hotspots have attracted more than USD $750 million in funding ^[3]. This is the largest sum ever assigned to a single conservation strategy. In addition, the geographic flexibility of this funding makes it particularly powerful, as conservation funds are often tied to the regions where they were generated.

The decision by Conservation International to focus on biodiversity hotspots is similar to World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) Global 200 initiative, which identifies over 200 ecoregions as priorities for conservation of biodiversity. Both are scientific initiatives that try to quantify species diversity, and the two schemes both target many of the same regions. The main differences are in the scale of the regions—the biodiversity hotspots tend to be larger regions, and generally include multiple WWF ecoregions—and CI's focus on terrestrial ecoregions, while the WWF scheme includes freshwater and marine ecoregions as well.

A detailed map prepared by National Geographic of the hotspots and individual endangered fauna details is provided at Conservation International's Website.

1 Critiques of Hotspots
2 The 34 biodiversity hotspots by region
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Critiques of Hotspots

The high profile of the biodiversity hotspots has resulted in considerable criticism. Papers such as Kareiva & Marvier (2003) ^[4] have argued that the biodiversity hotspots:

Do not adequately represent other forms of species richness (e.g., total species richness or threatened species richness).
Do not adequately represent taxa other than vascular plants (e.g, vertebrates, or fungi).
Do not protect smaller scale richness hotspots.
Do not make allowances for changing land use patterns. Hotspots represent regions that have experienced considerable habitat loss, but this does not mean they are experiencing ongoing habitat loss. On the other hand, regions that are relatively intact (e.g., the Amazon Basin) have experienced relatively little land loss, but are currently losing habitat at tremendous rates.
Do not protect ecosystem services
Do not consider phylogenetic diversity.

A recent series of papers has pointed out that biodiversity hotspots (and many other priority region sets) do not address the concept of cost ^[5]. The purpose of biodiversity hotspots is not simply to identify regions that are of high biodiversity value, but to prioritise conservation spending. The regions identified include regions in the developed world (e.g., the California Floristic Province), alongside regions in the developing world (e.g., Madagascar). The cost of land is likely to vary between these regions by an order of magnitude or more, but the biodiversity hotspots do not consider the conservation importance of this difference.

[edit] The 34 biodiversity hotspots by region

North and Central America

South America

Europe and Central Asia

Africa

Asia-Pacific

[edit] References

Myers, N., R. A. Mittermeier, C. G. Mittermeier, G. A. B. da Fonseca, and J. Kent. 2000. Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature 403:853-858