Biodiversity hotspots: Part 1

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Biodiversity is a natural resource.  Just like any resource we have to manage them carefully and avoid the issue of biodiversity loss. We have 34 regions scattered through out the world the serve as a reserve of the world’s total biodiversity. These regions are also the most threatened and are called our biodiversity hotspots.

The site BiodiversityHotspots.org list has a flash presentation of the following regions with highly diverse life-forms. Let’s begin with the American continent…

1. California Floristic Province. Home to the largest living organism, the Giant Sequioa. It also shelters the Critically Endangered California Condor.
2. Madrean Pine Oak Woodlands. Embracing most of Mexico’s main  mountain range and some of Southern California’s. One fourth of Mexico’s total species calls it home, most of which can’t be found outside the region. The monarch butterflies overwinters at the pine forest of Michoacan.
3. MesoAmerican Forests (Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, as well as a third of Mexico and nearly two-thirds of Panama). Third largest of the hotspots and home to hundreds of exotic animal species and 17,000 plant species.
4. Tumbes-Choco-Magdalena (Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru). The white winged guan is seriously threathened with extinction due to deforestation and hunting.
5. Tropical Andes (Western Venezuela, Northern Chile, Argentina, and large portions of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia). Richest biodiversity on Earth. The vastness of the region and range in elevation has provided a home to an amazing number of species, with ecosystems varying from desert to cloud forests.
6. Chilean Winter Rainfall - Valdivian Forests (Chile). The Andes mountains and pacific has walled-off around 40% of Chile’s land area into a biological hotspot withmany unique indigenous species.
7. Caribbean Islands. This hotspot has several unique species such as the Cuban crocodile, bee hummingbird (smallest bird), and Leptotyphlos bilineatus (smallest snake).
8. Cerrado (Brazil). 21% of the country’s land area. The giant anteater, giant armadillo, jaguar, and maned wolf call the region home. The hotspot is being threathened by agricultural expansion.
9. Atlantic Forest (Brazil’s Atlantic coast, Eastern Paraguay, Northeastern Argentina, and parts of the Uruguay coast). 20,000 plant species, 40% of which are endemic (local origins). Less than 10% of the orginal forest remains. More than 2 dozens Critically Endangered vertebrae species are found in the region and barely clinging for survival. It’s long been threatened by sugar and coffee plantations. Recently, the cities of Rio de Janiero and Sao Paulo has began expanding into the forest too.

Next is Africa and Europe.

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