Biodiversity Concordance and the Importance of Endemism

Abstract

Global conservation prioritization often focuses on protecting the most species for the money invested (e.g., Myers et al. 2000; Orme et al. 2005; Wilson et al. 2006). Biodiversity hotspots and surrogate species are heralded as promising approaches for achieving this goal (e.g., Rodrigues et al. 2004; Bani et al. 2006; Lamoreux et al. 2006). Although identifying biodiversity hotspots (Myers et al. 2000) may be an effective approach to prioritize conservation efforts in some regions of the world, several types of hotspots have been identified and different types of hotspots may not be congruent (Orme et al. 2005). Likewise, there are different methods for identifying surrogate species for conservation planning (Coppolillo et al. 2004; Mac Nally & Fleishman 2004; Rondinini & Boitani 2006), but there remains considerable debate regarding the effectiveness of surrogate species for achieving conservation goals (Lindenmayer et al. 2002; Roberge & Angelstam 2004; Caro et al. 2005). Lamoreux et al. (2006) recently produced the first global assessment of biodiversity concordance for terrestrial vertebrates. They report strong positive correlations in patterns of species richness as well as endemism among amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals, and suggest that any vertebrate class can act as a surrogate for species richness or endemism patterns in other classes. They also suggest that, in general, endemism is an effective surrogate for conservation of all terrestrial vertebrates. We reanalyzed their data and show that surrogacy of vertebrates cannot be assumed at meaningful planning scales, and provide examples of how focusing on endemism overlooks many other conservation values. Our objective is not to undermine the value of standardized global assess-