The biodiversity challenge: expanded hotspots analysis

This paper aims to throw light on the mass extinction that is overtaking Earth's species. Using an analytic methodology developed for an earlier partial assessment, i focu~es on a series of "hot-spot ' areas, these being areas that (a) feature xceptional concentrations of species with high levels of endemism, and (b) face exceptional threats of destruction. The paper identifies another eight such areas, four of them in tropical forests and foui " in Mediterranean-type zones. The analysis reveals that the four tropical-forest areas contain,at least 2,835 endemic plant species in 18,700 km ~, or 1.1 percent of Earth's plant species in 0.013 percent of Earth's land surface; and that the four Mediterranean-type area