Global hotspots of species richness are not congruent with endemism or threat : Nature

Nature 436, 1016-1019 (18 August 2005) | doi:10.1038/nature03850

Global hotspots of species richness are not congruent with endemism or threat

C. David L. Orme¹, Richard G. Davies³, Malcolm Burgess¹, Felix Eigenbrod¹, Nicola Pickup¹, Valerie A. Olson⁴, Andrea J. Webster⁵, Tzung-Su Ding⁶, Pamela C. Rasmussen⁷, Robert S. Ridgely⁸, Ali J. Stattersfield⁹, Peter M. Bennett⁴, Tim M. Blackburn⁵, Kevin J. Gaston³ and Ian P. F. Owens^1,²

Biodiversity hotspots have a prominent role in conservation biology^1,^2,^3,^4,^5,^6,^7,^8,⁹, but it remains controversial to what extent different types of hotspot are congruent^4,^10,^11,^12,^13,¹⁴. Previous studies were unable to provide a general answer because they used a single biodiversity index, were geographically restricted, compared areas of unequal size or did not quantitatively compare hotspot types^1,^2,^3,^4,^5,^6,^7,^8,^9,^10,^12,^13,^14,^15,^16,^17,^18,^19,^20,^21,²². Here we use a new global database on the breeding distribution of all known extant bird species to test for congruence across three types of hotspot. We demonstrate that hotspots of species richness, threat and endemism do not show the same geographical distribution. Only 2.5% of hotspot areas are common to all three aspects of diversity, with over 80% of hotspots being idiosyncratic. More generally, there is a surprisingly low overall congruence of biodiversity indices, with any one index explaining less than 24% of variation in the other indices. These results suggest that, even within a single taxonomic class, different mechanisms are responsible for the origin and maintenance of different aspects of diversity. Consequently, the different types of hotspots also vary greatly in their utility as conservation tools.

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Division of Biology and
NERC Centre for Population Biology, Imperial College London, Silwood Park, Ascot, Berkshire SL5 7PY, UK
Biodiversity and Macroecology Group, Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK
Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, Regent's Park, London NW1 4RY, UK
School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK
School of Forestry and Resource Conservation, National Taiwan University, 1, Sec 4, Roosevelt Road, Taipei 106, Taiwan
Michigan State University Museum and Department of Zoology, West Circle Drive, East Lansing, Michigan 48824-1045, USA
Academy of Natural Sciences, 1,900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103, USA
BirdLife International, Wellbrook Court, Girton, Girton Road, Cambridge, CB3 0NA, UK

Correspondence to: Ian P. F. Owens^1,² Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to I.P.F.O. (Email: i.owens@imperial.ac.uk).

Received 1 April 2005; Accepted 25 May 2005

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