Question

Write short notes on the following: Hotspots of biodiversity

Answer 1

Hint: Biodiversity provides a wide array of direct as well as indirect services to humans. Both the plant and animal biodiversity produce a wide array of food as well as fabrics.

Complete answer:
Biodiversity is important to maintain the balance in the ecology for sustaining the ecosystem. Biodiversity preservation provides an important economic benefit including the improvisation of the desirable characteristics of crops for producing resistant plants, producing medicinal herbs to cure illness and subsequently supporting ecotourism.

Hotspots of biodiversity (or biodiversity hotspots) are biogeographic regions of the planet that serve as a significant reservoir of biodiversity but are also threatened with extinction.
The phrase “biodiversity hotspots” explicitly refers to the 25 biologically rich areas spread across the world which have lost a minimum of 70% of their natural habitat and the remaining natural habitat in these hotspots accounts for only 1.4% of the planet’s landmass which supports almost 60% of the world’s flora and fauna.

The biodiversity hotspots are areas which have high levels of species richness and also have high degrees of endemism i.e. the organisms and plants are very specific to the location. Till date there are 35 Biodiversity hotspots out of which three are - Western Ghats, Sri Lanka and Himalayas.

Note: The term biodiversity hotspot was first coined by a British ecologist Norman Myers in the year 1988. He identified 10 tropical forest hotspots characterised by high levels of endemic plants and exceptionally increased levels of habitat loss.