BIOL 2060 Lecture Notes - Lecture 25: Biodiversity Hotspot, Norman Myers, Species Richness
3 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Diversity Hotspots
March 30, 2016
Recall: biodiversity patterns
• Tropics have large area
• Think of extinction rates
• To predict number of species in a specific area
Regionally:
• Area
• Isolation (far off the coast, shoreline, colonization)
• Abiotic gradients
• Disturbance (forest fire, glacial)
• Species interactions (competition, predation)
• Succession (chain of events following disturbance)
• Primary production (energy available)
Local Diversity vs. Regional Diversity
• Local diversity is either less than or equal to the regional diversity
• Ex. Coral
o 3 habitats: inshore reef flats, seaward crests, seaward slops
o number of species varies according to number of habitats available
o fewer species on flat than sloped habitat
o less species at local scale = follow linear relationship (not 1:1)
o colonization and dispersal are important factors
Biodiversity Hotspots
• which areas should have priority for biodiversity conservation
• where are the peaks of diversity in different species groups
• how is the land different from the ocean
Hotspot Concept = Norman Myers (1988)
• conserve areas with high biodiversity first
• focus on endemic species
• among those focus upon the most threatened by development
Hotspot = areas of high richness that may not always capture rare or threatened species
• see range of areas for species richness, threatened species and endemic species
Hotspots of Endemism and Threat:
• 34 biodiversity hotspots with 1,500 endemic plant species
• each lost 70% of original habitat
• 15.7% of land surface 2.3%
• may hold 44% of plants species, 33% of land vertebrate
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