Biodiversity Hot Spots Are __________.

Conjugal Veil Falls in Nantahala National Woods (NC), located in the Bluish Ridge Mountains, one of the nine biodiversity hotspots in the U.Due south. in urgent need of protection.

Paradigm: Jan Kronsell, CC BY-SA 4.0

In urgent need of protection

Thanks to pioneers like John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt, the U.S. has a long and proud tradition of nature conservation. But it could do a lot ameliorate. Intricate mapping of America's unique species shows that its biodiversity hotspots match up poorly with the areas already under protection.

A paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (i), identifies ix such hotspots in the U.Southward. outside current conservation areas that near urgently demand protection.

Fish species richness is particularly great in the southeast.

Image courtesy of Clinton Jenkins

Size isn't everything

The best way to foreclose extinction is to protect the habitat of vulnerable species. On the face up of it, the U.South. is non doing too bad in that department: it counts more than 25,000 protected areas, which cover more than fourteen% of the nation'due south total land area. They make up around 10% of the entire protected land surface area worldwide.

Just size isn't everything. "Although the full area protected (in the U.S.) is substantial, its geographic configuration is nearly the contrary of patterns of endemism (ii) within the country", the newspaper's authors write.

Owned mammal species in the U.Southward. are concentrated in the Deep Southward, with pregnant presence in the West.

Epitome courtesy of Clinton Jenkins

U.S. scores lower than global boilerplate

When it comes to specific biodiversity protection, the U.S. scores lower than the global average. Only seven.8% of the Lower 48 is within an surface area categorised every bit protected by the International Matrimony for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Worldwide, the effigy is ten.3%. However, in stricter IUCN categories (I to Iv), the share in the U.S. and worldwide is approximately the same, at around 6%.

Most of America'south protected lands are in the W, whereas most vulnerable species are in the Southeast. The mismatch has historical roots: America'southward conservation pioneers set out to protect landscapes, non biodiversity.

Bird diverseness is mainly a coastal thing.

Epitome courtesy of Clinton Jenkins

Over 12,000 endemic species

The paper is a first attempt to remedy that problem. By comparing the geographies of biodiversity and conservancy in the continental United States and factoring in species vulnerability, the paper identifies nine priority areas for conservation.

At that place are over 1,200 owned species in the continental U.S. and the authors devised a priority score for each of them, based on the size of their range and the proportion that is unprotected.

A map of high-priority areas for expansion of conservation in the U.South. to protect the nation's unique species. It is based on an assay of multiple groups of endemic species (amphibians, mammals, birds, freshwater fish, reptiles, and trees).

Image courtesy of Clinton Jenkins

Nine Priority Areas

"The highest-priority areas are generally in the Southeast, California and Texas. (They) encompass a relatively small portion of the state but are inordinately of import for biodiversity," the paper says. They are:

Blue Ridge Mountains (esp. the middle to southern sections, including the Cherokee, Nantahala, Pisgah, and Jefferson National Forests): a major priority for amphibians, mainly due to salamanders, besides equally for fish and copse.
Sierra Nevada Mountains (esp. the southern department): a priority mainly due to amphibians and trees.
California Coast Ranges: a priority mainly due to trees, amphibians, and mammals.
Tennessee, Alabama, northern Georgia watersheds: a priority mainly due to its exceptional fish variety, for which it is globally significant. There is also substantial reptile and amphibian diversity in some areas.
Florida panhandle: a priority mainly due to copse, fish, and reptiles.
Florida Keys: a priority by and large due to trees.
Klamath Mountains (esp. along the edge of Oregon and California): a priority mainly due to copse, and somewhat to amphibians, and fish.
S-Central Texas around Austin and San Antonio: this cluster of sites is a priority mainly due to amphibians, but likewise fish and reptiles.
California'due south Channel Islands: a priority mainly due to trees, reptiles, and mammals.

Macon, NC is "in the centre of global salamander diversity."

Image courtesy of Clinton Jenkins

Global salamander hotspot

The conservation priority map is one of many biodiversity maps on BiodiversityMapping.org, a website maintained by Clinton Jenkins, one of the authors of the paper. The site also features more than detailed biodiversity maps of the United States, Brazil and the world.

"The original inspiration for this site came during the writing of a scientific paper (…) in 2013. (I saw) a need for more widely attainable maps of where the many species on our planet alive," writes Mr Jenkins. "The first maps were for salamanders and other amphibians, created while sitting in the Macon County Public Library in Franklin, NC. That as well happens to be in the center of global salamander variety!"

The maps on the site have been developed by Mr Jenkins, now with the Institute de Pesquisas Ecologicas (IPE) in Brazil, and others.

New Zealand and surrounding waters are a global hotspot for seabird biodiversity.

Image courtesy of Clinton Jenkins

Maps reproduced with kind permission of Clinton Jenkins. For more, cheque out BiodiversityMapping.org.

Strange Maps #997

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(1) 'U.Southward. protected lands mismatch biodiversity priorities', by Clinton N. Jenkins, Kyle S. Van Houtan, Stuart L. Pimm, and Joseph O. Sexton. Published April 6, 2015, in PNAS.