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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. Biogeography is the science which deals with patterns of species distribution and the processes that result in such patterns. ...
Rainforests are among the most biodiverse ecosystems on earth Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variation of taxonomic life forms within a given ecosystem, biome or for the entire Earth. ...
Dr Norman Myers CMG (24 August 1934- ) is a British environmentalist and authority on biodiversity. ...
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. Conservation International (CI) is a nonprofit organization headquarted in Washington, D.C., that seeks to protect Earths biodiversity hotspots, high-biodiversity wilderness areas as well as important marine regions around the globe. ...
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a major private grant-making foundation based in Chicago that has awarded more than US$3 billion since its inception in 1978. ...
The Moore Foundation, also known as the Raymond S. and Dorothy N. Moore Foundation, is a non-profit organization in North Bonneville, Washington. ...
Logo of the World Bank The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, in Romance languages: BIRD), better known as the World Bank, is an international organization whose original mission was to finance the reconstruction of nations devastated by WWII. Now, its mission has expanded to fight poverty by means...
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. Note: After losing a court case in 2002 on the use of the initials WWF, the organization previously known as the World Wrestling Federation has rebranded itself as World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE. WWF - The Conservation Organization was formerly known as World Wildlife Fund and Worldwide Fund for Nature. ...
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An ecoregion, sometimes called a bioregion, is a relatively large area of land or water that contains a geographically distinct assemblage of natural communities. ...
To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...
Ecoregions are defined by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as relatively large units of land or water containing a distinct assemblage of natural communities and species, with boundaries that approximate the original extent of natural communities prior to major land-use change. Freshwater ecoregions represents the freshwater habitats of a...
Marine ecoregions are regions of the worlds oceans, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), to aid in conservation activities for marine ecosystems. ...
A detailed map prepared by National Geographic of the hotspots and individual endangered fauna details is provided at Conservation International's Website. The National Geographic Society was founded in the USA on January 27, 1888, by 33 men interested in organizing a society for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge. ...
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.
The 34 biodiversity hotspots by region North and Central America Map of Central America Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. ...
South America The California Floristic Province is a biodiversity hotspot as defined by UNESCO, located on the West Coast of North America. ...
This is a list of inhabited islands in the Caribbean. ...
The Madrean pine-oak woodlands are subtropical woodlands found in the mountains of Mexico and the southwestern United States. ...
The cultural areas of Mesoamerica Mesoamerica or Meso-America (Spanish: Mesoamérica) was a geographical culture area extending from central Honduras and northwestern Costa Rica on the south, and, in Mexico, from the Soto la Marina River in Tamaulipas and the Rio Fuerte in Sinaloa on the north. ...
South America South America is a continent crossed by the equator, with most of its area in the Southern Hemisphere. ...
Europe and Central Asia A typical ecosystem of Mata Atlântica at Serra do Mar Mata Atlântica is the Atlantic Rain Forest formerly covering the wet coastal hills along the Atlantic coast of Brazil (mostly in the Serra do Mar). ...
The cerrado (Portuguese: thick, dense) is a vast area of savanna-like grasslands in Brazil. ...
The Valdivian temperate rain forests are a terrestrial ecoregion located on the west coast of southern South America, in Chile and extending into a small part of Argentina. ...
Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena is a biodiversity hotspot, which includes the tropical moist forests and tropical dry forests of the Pacific coast of South America and the Galapagos Islands. ...
The Tropical Andes is a biodiversity hotspot designated by Conservation International which covers several montane and alpine ecoregions along the northern and central Andes range of South America, extending across portions of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. ...
This article is 150 kilobytes or more in size. ...
Map of Central Asia showing three sets of possible boundaries for the region Central Asia located as a region of the world Central Asia is a vast landlocked region of Asia. ...
Africa It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Caucasus Mountains. ...
The Irano-Anatolian region is a biodiversity hotspot designated by Conservation International, extending across portions of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Turkmenistan. ...
The Mediterranean Basin refers to the lands around and surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea. ...
The Mountains of Central Asia is a biodiversity hotspot designated by Conservation International which covers several montane and alpine ecoregions of Central Asia, including those of the Pamir and Tian Shan ranges, and extending across portions of Afghanistan, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. ...
A world map showing the continent of Africa. ...
Asia-Pacific Fynbos (Afrikaans for fine bush) is the natural vegetation occurring in a small belt of South Africa, mainly in the South-western Cape. ...
The Coastal forests of eastern Africa is a tropical moist forest region along the east coast of Africa. ...
Afromontane is a term used to describe the plant and animal species common to the mountains of Africa and the southern Arabian Peninsula. ...
The Guinean forests of West Africa is a biodiversity hotspot designated by Conservation International, which includes the belt of tropical moist broadleaf forests along the coast of West Africa, running from Sierra Leone and Guinea in the west to the Sanaga River of Cameroon in the east. ...
Nations of the Horn of Africa. ...
The Coastal forests of eastern Africa is a tropical moist forest region along the east coast of Africa. ...
Madagascar, located in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa, is the fourth largest island in the world. ...
Map of the two Karoo ecoregions as delineated by the WWF. Satellite image from NASA. The yellow line encloses the two ecoregions. ...
Bold text Map showing general definition of Asia-Pacific The term Asia Pacific or Asia-Pacific generally applies to the littoral East Asia and South East Asia states that are near the Pacific Ocean, plus the states in the ocean itself (Oceania). ...
Einasleigh and Desert Uplands (Queensland) The East Melanesian Islands, also known as the Solomons-Vanuatu-Bismarck moist forests, is a biogeographic region notable for its unique flora and fauna and species richness. ...
Perspective view of the Himalaya and Mount Everest as seen from space looking south-south-east from over the Tibetan Plateau. ...
Indo-Burma is a biodiversity hotspot designated by Conservation International, which extends from eastern India and southern China across Southeast Asia, excluding the Malay Peninsula. ...
The Mountains of Southwest China is a biodiversity hotspot designated by Conservation International which includes several temperate coniferous forests in southwestern China, which lie in the river valleys on the southeastern corner of the Tibetan plateau, between the alpine scrublands and steppes of the Tibetan Plateau and the temperate broadleaf...
Oceania is the smallest of the worlds terrestrial ecozones, and unique in not including any continental land mass. ...
Southwest Australia is a biodiversity hotspot that includes the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and shrub ecoregions of Western Australia. ...
Sundaland is a biogeographical region of Southeast Asia that comprises the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java, Bali, Borneo, and surrounding smaller islands. ...
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The Agasthiyamalai range of the Western Ghats The Western Ghats are a mountain range in India. ...
This region of North Queensland, the high ranges and plateus of Einasleigh contrast sharply with the plain and low ranges of the Desert Uplands. Einasleigh basalt lava flows and lava tunnels privide habitat fro threatened adn geographically restricted plants and animals. water enters the Great Artesain Baiosn aquifers here and improatant astesian spring complexes contain endemic plants, anails adn fish including the edgbaston goby and the plant slat pipewort.
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