Essay On Biodiversity Hotspot

Biodiversity is a variety of the same genes within a plant or animal species, or the variety of species among plants and animals exhibiting their richness in a particular ecosystem. Biodiversity is important for human wellbeing since mankind, being part of the ecosystem depends on the biodiversity in it just like other species. Biodiversity across the globe is not evenly distributed due to the main factors of temperature and precipitation. Some places on earth are blessed with species that are found nowhere else (endemic) while other locations on the planet have lost a vast majority of the habitat that was once home to a lot of species. This led to the concept of biodiversity hotspots which are large vegetations of land that are concentrated with endemic species and have lost a major portion of the habitat (at least 70%). (Mittermeier et. al., 2011) describes what qualifies an area to be designated as a biodiversity hotspot as its endemism (at least 1,500 endemic plant species, that is

(Kremen et. al., 1999). The only continent that has a higher plant family than the Madagascar and Indian Ocean Hotspot is Australia. This hotspot is named so because it includes the independent island countries Seychelles, Mauritius and Comoros. Madagascar has 178 species of frogs, of which 99% are endemic. The 21% and 29% of all primate genera and families found in Madagascar has accorded it the priority for primate diversity conservation. Madagascar is estimated to have lost about 80% of its forest cover. Slash-and-burn agriculture which is the prominent form of agriculture in the tropics is also the biggest threat to biodiversity in Madagascar through the practice of shifting cultivation which may not involve fallowing. Other threats to the hotspot include timber exploitation, hunting and charcoal production (Mittermeier et. al.,