INVESTIGADORES
MARTINEZ VON ELLRICHSHAUSEN Andres Santiago
artículos
Título:
Quantity versus quality: Endemism and protected areas in the temperate forest of South America
Autor/es:
RODRÍGUEZ-CABAL, MARIANO A NUÑEZ, MARTÍN A, MARTÍNEZ, ANDRES
Revista:
AUSTRAL ECOLOGY
Referencias:
Año: 2008 vol. 33 p. 730 - 736
ISSN:
1442-9985
Resumen:
Identification of biodiversity hotspots
is essential to conservation strategies aimed at minimizing the
possibility of losing half of the world's species in the next 50 years.
The aims of the present study were: (i) to locate and designate zones
of endemism in the temperate forest of South America; and (ii) to
compare the distribution of these areas with the distribution of
existing protected areas in this habitat type. Endemism areas were
determined by using parsimonious analysis of endemism, which identified
zones of endemism on the basis of sets of endemic species that were
restricted to two or more study areas. We used distribution information
for five unrelated taxa (ferns, trees, reptiles, birds and mammals) to
provide more reliable results and patterns than would work with only a
single taxon or related taxa. The northern part of this region has high
endemism for all of the taxa considered in this study. We demonstrate
that although the temperate forest of South America has more than 30%
of its area under some type of protection, correlation between
protected areas and the areas of endemism is remarkably low. In fact,
less than 10% of protected areas are situated in areas that have the
greatest value for conservation (i.e. high endemism). Under the current
strategy, biodiversity within South America's temperate forest is in
danger despite the large amount of protected area for this forest type.