Lecture 11 - Hotspots

BIODIVERSITY HOTSPOTS

HOTSPOTS SCIENCE • Life on Earth faces a crisis of historical and planetary proportions. • Unsustainable consumption in many northern countries and crushing poverty in the tropics are destroying wild nature • Extinction is the gravest aspect of the biodiversity crisis – it is irreversible – It is a natural process but human impacts elevate rate by at least a thousand times

• Conservation budgets insufficient compared to number of species threatened with extinction, – what areas are most immediately important for conserving biodiversity?

• Norman Myers defined the biodiversity hotspot concept in 1988

BIODIVERSITY HOTSPOTS: Some Features • Especially high numbers of endemic species; • Combined area of remaining habitat covers only 2.3 percent of Earth's land surface; • Each hotspot faces extreme threats and already lost at least 70 percent of original natural vegetation; • Over 50 percent of world’s plant species and 42 percent of all terrestrial vertebrate species endemic to the 34 biodiversity hotspots.

QUESTION: In which areas would a given dollar contribute most towards slowing current rate of extinction? • We first need to understand species’ distributions; • This requires that we measure endemism; – degree to which species are found only in a given place – as a measure of “irreplaceability”.

• Need to decide which species we should consider; • Slow the rate of species extinction as much as possible • Generally, the more threatened an area is, the more it will cost to conserve.

OTHER SYSTEMS USED

• 12 Mega biodiversity countries; • 218 Endemic Bird Areas (Birdlife International) – At least 2 spp endemic

• Global 200 Ecoregions (World Wildlife Fund-U.S ) Chosen on basis of: – – – – –

Species richness Endemism taxonomic uniqueness, unusual ecological or evolutionary phenomena, and global rarity

All hotspots contain: • at least one Global 200 Ecoregion; • all but three contain at least one EBA; • 60 percent of Global 200 terrestrial Ecoregions and 78 percent of EBAs overlap with hotspots.

HOTSPOTS DEFINED: Chronology • 1988 – Norman Myers presented seminar paper; – identified 10 tropical forest “hotspots” characterized by exceptional levels of plant endemism and by serious levels of habitat loss • 1990 - Myers added a further eight hotspots, • 1989 - Conservation International adopted Myers’ hotspots as its institutional blueprint • 1996 – CI made decision to undertake a reassessment; • 1999 - extensive global review was undertaken.

HOTSPOTS DEFINED: Chronology

(cont) • 1999 analysis published in the book Hotspots: Earth’s Biologically Richest and Most Endangered Terrestrial Ecoregions; • Nature (Myers, et al. 2000), 25 biodiversity hotspots were identified; • Now 34 biodiversity hotspots

TO QUALIFY AS A BIODIVERSITY HOTSPOT: A region must • contain at least 1,500 species of vascular plants (> 0.5 percent of the world’s total) as endemics; and • have lost at least 70 percent of its original habitat.

IMPACT OF HOTSPOTS : • Numerous scientific papers that use the word “hotspot” to refer to biodiversity conservation; • Investment – CI adopted hotspots as its central strategy in 1989, – John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation implemented the hotspots as its primary global investment strategy.

• In 2000, the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility joined CI in establishing the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund

IMPACT OF HOTSPOTS : (cont) • 2001 - MacArthur Foundation became a partner; • 2002 - Japanese Government joined the partnership; • Contribution also from Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; • Amount devoted to hotspots in last 15 years – USD 750 million

Green bars – no of publications using hotspots Red line – Myers citation

HOTSPOTS REVISITED: • 2 major ways hotspots can change: – Threats and their impacts change – Knowledge of biodiversity, threats, and costs continually improving.

• Aims of the Hotspots Revisited analysis – – – – –

not to rework entire hotspots concept Revisit status of existing hotspots Refine boundaries Update information Consider potential new hotspots

HOTSPOTS REVISITED: Major Findings • 6 previously overlooked areas qualify for hotspot • 2 hotspots subdivided • Now total 34 biodiversity hotspots • Hotspots once covered 15.7 % of the Earth’s land surface (now only 2.3%) • 86 percent of hotspots’ habitat already destroyed,

HOTSPOTS REVISITED: Conclusions • Hotspots concept is solidifying; • Amount of biodiversity contained in the hotspots is extremely high; – half of the planet’s species endemic to only 16% of its land area

• Hotspots provide us with the real measure of the conservation challenge.

BIODIVERSITY HOTSPOTS: Plant Species Hotspot

Plant Species

Endemic Plant Species

Endemics as a Percentage of World Total

Indo – Burma

13500

7000

2.3

Philippines

9253

6091

2.0

Southwest Australia

5571

2948

1.0

Mediterranean Basin

22500

11700

3.9

Sundaland

25000

15000

5.0

BIODIVERSITY HOTSPOTS: Remaining Habitat Hotspot

Original Extent (km2)

Remaining Habitat (km2)

Percentage Habitat Remaining

Indo – Burma

2373057

118653

5.0

Philippines

297179

20803

7.0

Southwest Australia

356717

107015

30.0

Mediterranean Basin

2085292

98009

4.7

Sundaland

1501063

100571

6.7

BIODIVERSITY HOTSPOTS: Endemic Vertebrate Species Mammals

Birds

Reptiles

Amphibians .

FW fish

Total worldwide

4735

9918

8199

5743

12070

Endemic to one or more hotspots

1573

3482

3711

3222

3418

Occurring in one or more

3756

8232

5762

4282

-

BIODIVERSITY HOTSPOTS: Human Population HOTSPOT

POPULATION

PEOPLE/KM2

Indo-Burma

316900000

133.54

Philippines

81000000

272.56

Southwest Australia

1700000

4.77

Maditerranean Basin

232200000

111.35

Sundaland

229400000

152.83

Global average: 42 people/km2

HOTSPOTS BY REGION

EAST MELANESIAN ISLANDS

INDO-BURMA

PHILIPPINES

SUNDALAND

SUNDALAND: Vital Statistics Original extent (km2) Vegetation remaining (km2) Endemic plant species Endemic threatened birds Endemic threatened mammals Endemic threatened amphibians Extinct species Human population density (people/km2) Area protected (km2)

1,501,063 100,571 15,000 43 60 59 4 152.83 179,723

SUNDALAND: Overview • Covers small portion of southern Thailand; nearly all of Malaysia; Singapore; all of Brunei Darussalam; all of western half of Indonesia (including Kalimantan); and Nicobar Islands. • Some 17,000 equatorial islands • Dominated by two of the largest islands in the world: Borneo (725,000 km²) and Sumatra (427,300 km²). • Bordered by Indo-Burma, Wallacea and Philippines

SUNDALAND: DIVERSITY AND ENDEMISM Taxonomic Group Plants

Species Endemic Species

% Endemism

25000

15000

60.00

Mammals

380

172

45.26

Birds

769

142

18.47

Reptiles

452

253

53.76

Amphibians

244

196

80.33

Freshwater Fish

950

350

36.84

SUNDALAND: PLANTS • 60% endemism • Family Scyphostegiaceae, - represented by a single tree species, Scyphostegia borneensis • 117 endemic genera (59 Borneo, 17 Sumatra, 41 Peninsula Malaysia) • Genus Rafflesia, represented by 16 species with very large flowers

SUNDALAND: BIRDS • 770 bird species, 150 endemic, 40 threatened; • Borneo – 30 endemic species; • Bornean Mountains, with 20 species, considered one of five Endemic Bird Areas (EBAs) • Bali starling (Leucopsar rothschildi, CR), – endemic to Bali island, and – wild population fell to only six birds in 2001

• Javanese lapwing (Vanellus macropterus, CR), which once inhabited river deltas and marshes in west and east, has not been recorded since 1940

SUNDALAND: MAMMALS • • • •

380 mammal species, over 170 are endemic; 17 of 136 genera are endemic; Borneo – 25 endemic species; Threatened species: – orang-utans, represented by two species: the Bornean (Pongo pygmaeus, EN), and the Sumatran (Pongo abelii, CR), – Proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus, EN) – Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinos sumatrensis, CR)

SUNDALAND: REPTILES • Over 450 species, roughly 250 endemic, including 24 genera; • 3 endemic reptile families (2 snakes, 1 monitor lizard) • Most distinctive endemic reptiles - false gharial (Tomistoma schlegelii, EN) (FW crocodile) • 2 species of large river terrapins: the mangrove terrapin (Batagur baska, CR) and the painted terrapin (Callagur borneoensis, CR)

SUNDALAND: HUMAN IMPACTS • forest destruction (rubber production, pulp production, illegal logging; • Wildlife trade; – Used to be orang utan – Now rhino and tigers for Chinese medicine;

• Others: turtles, geckos, pangolins, bears

SUNDALAND: Conservation action and protected areas • Around 180,000 km² of land is protected • 77,000 km² of this land (5.2 percent of the hotspot) - in protected areas of IUCN categories I to IV • Parks - Kinabalu in Sabah, Gunung Gede Pangrango in Java, and Hala-Bala in Thailand are well protected. Others may not; • Malaysia Marine Parks

Forest destruction is the single biggest threat to biodiversity in the Sundaland Hotspot, due to commercial logging and expansion of rubber and oil palm plantations. Gold mining severely impacts forest and riverine ecosystems in Sundaland thru habitat destruction and water contamination

Researches in Batang Gadis National Park, Sumatra, use camera traps to measure

Tanjung Puting National Park in central Kalimantan, is threatened due to habitat loss. The Sumatran orang-utan (Pongo abelii, CR), restricted to the island of Sumatra, is critically endangered. Similar facility in Sipolok, Sabah

GOOD LUCK IN YOUR TEST AND FINALS