Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-xxrs7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T15:06:40.921Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Identifying important endemic areas using ecoregions: birds and mammals in the Indo-Pacific

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2004

Julia E. Fa
Affiliation:
Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Les Augrès Manor, Trinity, Jersey, JE3 5BP, UK
Robert W. Burn
Affiliation:
Statistical Services Centre, Harry Pitt Building, University of Reading, PO Box 240, Whiteknights Road, Reading, RG6 6FN, UK
Mark R. Stanley Price
Affiliation:
Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Les Augrès Manor, Trinity, Jersey, JE3 5BP, UK
Fiona M. Underwood
Affiliation:
Research Unit for Wildlife Population Assessment, University of St Andrews, The Observatory, Buchanan Gardens, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9LZ, UK
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Concentrations of large numbers of endemic species have been singled out in prioritization exercises as significant areas for global biodiversity conservation. This paper describes bird and mammal endemicity in Indo-Pacific ecoregions. An ecoregion is a relatively large unit of land or water that contains a distinct assemblage of natural communities. We prioritize 133 ecoregions according to their levels of endemicity, and explain how variables such as biome type, whether the ecoregion is on an island or continental mass, montane or non-montane, correlate with the proportion of the total species assemblage that are endemic. Following an exploratory principal components analysis we classify all ecoregions according to the relationship between numbers of endemics and overall species richness. Endemicity is negatively correlated with species richness. We show that plotting the logit transformation of the endemicity of birds and mammals against log of species richness is a more effective and useful way of identifying important ecoregions than simply ordering ecoregions by the proportion of endemic species, or any other single measure. The plot, divided into 16 regions corresponding to the quartiles of the two variables, was used to identify ecoregions of high conservation value. These are the ecoregions with the highest endemicity and lowest species richness. Further analysis shows that island and montane ecoregions, regardless of their biome type, are by far the most important for endemic species.

Type
Articles
Copyright
© 2004 Fauna & Flora International

Footnotes

This paper contains supplementary material that can only be found online at http://journals.cambridge.org
Supplementary material: PDF

Fa Supplementary material

Fa Appendix

Download Fa Supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 48.4 KB