Name the exmple of congruent in plants?
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Answer:
Identifying biodiversity hotspots has become a central issue in setting up priority protection areas, especially as financial resources for biological diversity conservation are limited. Taking China’s Higher Plants Red List (CHPRL), including Bryophytes, Ferns, Gymnosperms, Angiosperms, as the data source, we analyzed the geographic patterns of species richness, endemism and endangerment via data processing at a fine grid-scale with an average edge length of 30 km based on three aspects of richness information: species richness, endemic species richness and threatened species richness. We sought to test the accuracy of hotspots used in identifying conservation priorities with regard to higher plants. Next, we tested the congruence of the three aspects and made a comparison of the similarities and differences between the hotspots described in this paper and those in previous studies. We found that over 90% of threatened species in China are concentrated. While a high spatial congruence is observed among the three measures, there is a low congruence between two different sets of hotspots. Our results suggest that biodiversity information should be considered when identifying biological hotspots. Other factors, such as scales, should be included as well to develop biodiversity conservation plans in accordance with the region’s specific conditions.
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Introduction
Economic development and human activities have caused significant damage to the environment and biodiversity resources. Using limited financial resources to protect species, habitats and vegetation as much as possible is an important goal of the current efforts in biological diversity conservation, while the primary task in determining “where and which species need to be protected” is to identify priority protection areas. As an important basis for setting up priority protection areas, biodiversity hotspots have become a central issue in numerous problems that need to be addressed1,2.
Identifying biodiversity hotspots typically requires that species diversity, habitat loss, endemism and endangered status be considered3,4. Conservationists have thus proposed the use of the three most commonly utilized maps to show species diversity patterns, namely species richness pattern maps, endangered species pattern maps and restricted species (endemic species) pattern maps5,6,7. This method relies mainly on species distribution patterns to determine which areas are most concentrated with species distribution, which areas have the most obvious endemism and which areas have the most endangered species. In addition to methods based on traditional species richness spatial analysis, evolutionary diversity and the evolution of species have also received considerable attention as a means of identifying biodiversity hotspots in recent years due to a focus on long-term information on the evolution of different species8,9,10,11,12.
Despite this interest, however, analysis of species’ broad-scale spatial distribution patterns based on a localized database and a distribution range geodatabase is the central issue in much macro-ecology and conservation biology research and traditional methods of determining hotspots based on species spatial distribution patterns have not been abandoned. On the contrary, with more in-depth research on taxa and a comprehensive collection of information, traditional analytical methods have stabilized and have been widely applied in research on numerous important taxa and biogeographic regions13,14,15,16,17,18. Taxa that have been studied in greater depth at a global scale include plants (e.g., vascular plants and bryophytes)7,19,20,21 and vertebrates (e.g., mammals, birds, amphibians and fish); several cross-taxon studies have also been conducted6,7,14,17,22,23,24,25,26,27,28. Various taxa have been studied at national or regional scales in Asia29, Europe30,31,32, Africa33,34 and other regions. China has also conducted some research in this area, particularly on plants throughout the country. Due to a lack of data, however, many studies have either been limited to a specific region, specific habitat range, or specific taxon, or the scales used were relatively coarse; consequently, these studies do not offer a complete picture of China’s plant diversity35,36,37,38,39.
In this paper, we analyzed the diversity, endemism and endangered status of 34,450 kinds of Chinese indigenous higher plants based on three aspects of richness information, namely, species richness (SR), endemic species richness (ER) and threatened species richness (TR), on the most current China’s Higher Plants Red List (CHPRL), which was recently released in 2013 (see Material and Methods).
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Identifying biodiversity hotspots has become a central issue in setting up priority protection areas, especially as financial resources for biological diversity conservation are limited. Taking China’s Higher Plants Red List (CHPRL), including Bryophytes, Ferns, Gymnosperms, Angiosperms, as the data source, we analyzed the geographic patterns of species richness, endemism and endangerment via data processing at a fine grid-scale with an average edge length of 30 km based on three aspects of richness information: species richness, endemic species richness and threatened species richness. We sought to test the accuracy of hotspots used in identifying conservation priorities with regard to higher plants. Next, we tested the congruence of the three aspects and made a comparison of the similarities and differences between the hotspots described in this paper and those in previous studies. We found that over 90% of threatened species in China are concentrated. While a high spatial congruence is observed among the three measures, there is a low congruence between two different sets of hotspots. Our results suggest that biodiversity information should be considered when identifying biological hotspots. Other factors, such as scales, should be included as well to develop biodiversity conservation plans in accordance with the region’s specific conditions.