Biodiversity Hotspots - Critiques of Hotspots

Critiques of Hotspots

The high profile of the biodiversity hotspots approach has resulted in considerable criticism. Papers such as Kareiva & Marvier (2003) have argued that the biodiversity hotspots:

• Do not adequately represent other forms of species richness (e.g. total species richness or threatened species richness).
• Do not adequately represent taxa other than vascular plants (e.g. vertebrates, or fungi).
• Do not protect smaller scale richness hotspots.
• Do not make allowances for changing land use patterns. Hotspots represent regions that have experienced considerable habitat loss, but this does not mean they are experiencing ongoing habitat loss. On the other hand, regions that are relatively intact (e.g. the Amazon Basin) have experienced relatively little land loss, but are currently losing habitat at tremendous rates.
• Do not protect ecosystem services
• Do not consider phylogenetic diversity.

A recent series of papers has pointed out that biodiversity hotspots (and many other priority region sets) do not address the concept of cost. The purpose of biodiversity hotspots is not simply to identify regions that are of high biodiversity value, but to prioritize conservation spending. The regions identified include regions in the developed world (e.g. the California Floristic Province), alongside regions in the developing world (e.g. Madagascar). The cost of land is likely to vary between these regions by an order of magnitude or more, but the biodiversity hotspots do not consider the conservation importance of this difference.