In Focus: Biodiversity Hotspots
In Focus: Biodiversity Hotspots
- A biodiversity hotspot is a region with a high amount of biodiversity that experiences habitat loss by human activity.
- The term “biodiversity hotspot” was coined by a British environmentalist Norman Myers in 1988.
- For a region to qualify as a biodiversity hotspot, it must meet the following two criteria:
- Contain at least 1,500 species of vascular plants found nowhere else on Earth (known as “endemic” species).
- Have lost at least 70 percent of its primary native vegetation.
- Contain at least 1,500 species of vascular plants found nowhere else on Earth (known as “endemic” species).
- There are currently 36 recognized biodiversity hotspots in the world.
- These are Earth’s most biologically rich—yet threatened—terrestrial regions.
- They represent just 4% of Earth’s land surface, but they support more than half of the world’s plant species as endemicsand nearly 43% of bird, mammal, reptile and amphibianspecies as endemics.
- Several international organizations are working in many ways to conserve these biodiversity hotspots.
Biodiversity Hotspots concerning India:
- There are four biodiversity hotspots in and around India. These are:
- The Himalayas
- The Western Ghats
- Indo-Burma region
- Sundaland
- The Himalayas
The Himalayas:
- The Himalayas include the entire Indian Himalayan region (and that falling in Pakistan, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, China and Myanmar).
- Of the estimated 10,000 species of plants in the Himalaya Hotspot, about 3,160 are endemic.
- In spite of harsh winter conditions, there are records of vascular plants occurring at some of the highest elevations on Earth.
- About 300 mammal species have been recorded in the Himalaya, including a dozen that are endemic to the hotspot—the Endangered golden langurand Critically Endangered pygmy hogamong them.
Indo-Burma region:
- This hotspot includes entire North-eastern India, except Assam and Andaman group of Islands (and Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and southern China).
- More than 300 million people live in Indo-Burma, more than any other hotspot.
- The hotspot is noteworthy for its concentration of globally threatened primates, of which 20 are endemic to the hotspot.
- The Critically Endangered lesser one-horned rhinocerosrecently disappeared from the hotspot, and now only survives in one location in Java.
Western Ghats:
- This hotspot includes the entire Western Ghats and Sri Lanka.
- It is estimated that there are four thousand species of flowering plants known from the Western Ghats and 1,500 (nearly 38 percent) of these are endemic.
- The Nilgiri Mountains are one of the most important centres of speciation for flowering plants in the Western Ghats, with 82 species restricted to this area alone.
- Wide-ranging and flagship mammal species such as the tiger and elephant have attracted significant conservation efforts.
Sundaland:
- The hotspot covers a small portion of southern Thailand; nearly all of Malaysia; Singapore; Brunei; and the western half of Indonesia. The Nicobar Islands of India are also included.
- The hotspot is one of the biologically richest regions on Earth, holding about 25,000 species of vascular plants, 60 percent of which are endemic.
- Some 380 mammal species are found here, including two species of orangutans: the Critically Endangered Bornean orangutan, and the Critically Endangered Sumatran orangutan.
- Other iconic species include the Endangered proboscis monkey, which lives only on Borneo, and two rhinoceros species: the Critically Endangered Javan rhino and the Critically Endangered Sumatran rhino.
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