Biogeographical patterns of endemic terrestrial Afrotropical birds
نویسندگان
چکیده
Biogeographical zones are described for terrestrial bird species endemic to the Afrotropics using up-to-date distributional data and multivariate statistical techniques. This provides an objective basis for a hierarchy of subregions, provinces and districts, based on a set of rules. Results are compared to previous studies at continental and regional scales. Biogeographical zones for passerines and non-passerines are compared and found to be similar. Peaks of species richness and narrow endemism are described for the six major subdivisions (subregions) identified by the cluster analysis. Coincidence of peaks of species richness and narrow endemism is found to be low, such that areas selected to represent high species richness tallies will often fail to represent narrow endemics. Strong regionalization of Afrotropical birds indicates the need to use a biogeographical framework in conservation priority setting exercises to ensure that unique, but species-poor, avifaunas are not neglected.
منابع مشابه
Palearctic elements in the old world tropics: a taxonomic revision of the ant genus Temnothorax Mayr (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) for the Afrotropical biogeographical region
Four new Afrotropical species of the ant genus Temnothorax are described and illustrated, all from Kenya. Based upon high resemblance to taxa known from the North African and Iberian territories of the Mediterranean region, these new tropical elements are placed into known Palaearctic species complexes. Specifically, Temnothoraxbrevidentis sp. n., Temnothoraxmpala sp. n. and Temnothoraxrufus sp...
متن کاملModel uncertainties do not affect observed patterns of species richness in the Amazon
BACKGROUND Climate change is arguably a major threat to biodiversity conservation and there are several methods to assess its impacts on species potential distribution. Yet the extent to which different approaches on species distribution modeling affect species richness patterns at biogeographical scale is however unaddressed in literature. In this paper, we verified if the expected responses t...
متن کاملLong-distance dispersal: a framework for hypothesis testing.
Tests of hypotheses about the biogeographical consequences of long-distance dispersal have long eluded biologists, largely because of the rarity and presumed unpredictability of such events. Here, we examine data for terrestrial (including littoral) organisms in the Pacific to show that knowledge of dispersal by wind, birds and oceanic drift or rafting, coupled with information about the natura...
متن کاملFreshwater Biogeography and Limnological Evolution of the Tibetan Plateau - Insights from a Plateau-Wide Distributed Gastropod Taxon (Radix spp.)
BACKGROUND The Tibetan Plateau is not only the highest and largest plateau on earth; it is also home to numerous freshwater lakes potentially harbouring endemic faunal elements. As it remains largely unknown whether these lakes have continuously existed during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), questions arise as to whether taxa have been able to exist on the plateau since before the latest Pleist...
متن کاملGeometric constraints explain much of the species richness pattern in African birds.
The world contains boundaries (e.g., continental edge for terrestrial taxa) that impose geometric constraints on the distribution of species ranges. Thus, contrary to traditional thinking, the expected species richness pattern in absence of ecological or physiographical factors is unlikely to be uniform. Species richness has been shown to peak in the middle of a bounded one-dimensional domain, ...
متن کامل