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Biogeographic Patterns and Conservation in the South American Cerrado: A Tropical Savanna Hotspot

2002; Oxford University Press; Volume: 52; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1641/0006-3568(2002)052[0225

1525-3244

José Maria Cardoso da Silva, John M. Bates,

Plant Diversity and Evolution

)ofthe land surface in SouthAmerica,Africa,and Asia.Most people know these savannasbecause oftheir unique assemblages ofabundant and exquisitewildlife;however,they have only recently begun to receive thekind ofattention from a conservation viewpoint that hasbeen given to tropical rain forests (Myers et al.2000).Thelargest,richest,and possibly most threatened tropical sa-vanna in the world is the Cerrado,a large region that occu-pies the center ofSouth America.In an effort to identify theworld’s most important biodiversity hotspots,Myers andcolleagues (2000) ranked the Cerrado among the 25 most im-portant terrestrial hotspots.It is the only region on their listdominated by tropical savannas.The biodiversity ofthe Cer-rado is impressive;in an area of1.86 million km