Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Global endemicity centres for terrestrial vertebrates: an ecoregions approach

2007; Inter-Research; Volume: 3; Linguagem: Inglês

10.3354/esr003031

1863-5407

John E. Fa, SM Funk,

Wildlife Ecology and Conservation

ESR Endangered Species Research Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsSpecials ESR 3:31-42 (2007) - doi:10.3354/esr003031 Global endemicity centres for terrestrial vertebrates: an ecoregions approach John E. Fa*, Stephan M. Funk Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Les Augrès Manor, Trinity, Jersey JE3 5BP, UK *Email: jfa@durrell.org ABSTRACT: Endemic taxa are those restricted to a specific area, and can be defined as the exclusive biodiversity of a region. Areas with high endemic numbers are irreplaceable, and are of high priority for conservation. We investigated global patterns of endemicity of terrestrial vertebrates (mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians) by employing data from World Wildlife Fund-US on 26452 species distributions (endemic and non-endemic) within 796 ecoregions. Ecoregions represent global ecosystem and habitat types at a landscape level. We explored the entire dataset by first using a principal components analysis, PCA, to identify which parameters and ordinations (transformations) best characterise the ecoregions. PCA identified the empirical logit transformation of proportional endemicity, not absolute or relative endemicity, as the appropriate variable. We prioritised ecoregions by ranking the empirical logit transformation of proportional endemicity, standardised across animal groups to avoid taxonomic biases. Finally, we analysed how ecoregion characteristics and the degree of isolation correlated with endemicity in all studied groups, by fitting logistic regression models. We argue that using our method, conservationists can better denote areas of importance for protection of endemic biodiversity worldwide. KEY WORDS: Endemic species · Species richness · Terrestrial vertebrates · Ecoregions · Prioritisation · Isolation Full text in pdf format Supplementary appendix PreviousNextExport citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in ESR Vol. 3, No. 1. Online publication date: May 22, 2007 Print ISSN: 1863-5407; Online ISSN: 1613-4796 Copyright © 2007 Inter-Research.