Diversity, rarity and the evolution and conservation of the Canary Islands endemic flora

By J. Reyes-Betancort, Arnoldo Santos Guerra, I. Guma, C. Humphries, M. Carine. 2008

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Reyes-Betancort, J.A., Santos Guerra, A., Guma, I.R., Humphries, C.J. & Carine, M.A. 2008. Diversity, rarity and the evolution and conservation of the Canary Islands endemic flora. Anales Jard. Bot. Madrid 65(1): 25-45. The endemic vascular flora of the Canary Islands comprises over 680, taxa collectively accounting for more than 50% of the total native flora. To investigate geographical patterns of diversity within the endemic flora, distribution data from published sources together with other field observation and herbarium data were used to compile a data matrix comprising the distrib- utions of ca. 90% of endemic taxa scored on a 10 × 10km UTM grid. WORLDMAP was then used to investigate patterns of en- demic diversity, range size rarity (a measure of endemicity), phy- logenetic diversity and threatened taxon richness. Endemic tax- on richness was found to be highly heterogeneous across the archipelago, with cells containing between one and 139 taxa each (0.05-22.82% of endemic diversity). Patterns of variation in range size rarity and phylogenetic diversity were found to be largely congruent with endemic diversity, although some cells exhibited markedly higher range size rarity scores than would be predicted by their endemic diversity scores. In contrast, the pat- tern of endangered taxon richness across the archipelago dif- fered markedly from endemic taxon richness. Many cells in Lan- zarote, Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria exhibit higher endan- gered taxon richness scores than would be predicted from their endemic richness scores whereas in Tenerife, El Hierro, La Palma and La Gomera, the converse is generally true. The implications of the results both for understanding the evolution of Canary Is- land endemic diversity and for the conservation of the region's unique and vulnerable flora are considered.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e4db9949028476ba8c1bc461b2cdd79d4fb70f1f

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In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

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Citations in the corpus

The Azores diversity enigma: why are there so few Azorean endemic flowering plants and why are they so widespread? (2009, background): “In La Palma, the net rate of evolution of endemics is even higher, as there are 54 single-island endemics (Reyes-Betancort et al., 2008), which, over the course of the island’s 2-Myr existence, suggests a net rate of evolution of one endemic taxon per c.”
Conservation of oceanic island floras: present and future global challenges. (2010, background): “2 2006, 2007a, b), although some local or regional surveys of endangerment patterns on different oceanic archipelagos have been carried out (Médail and Quezel, 1997; Jaffre et al., 1998; Broughton and McAdam, 2002; Sakai et al., 2002; Kingston and Waldren, 2005; Strasberg et al., 2005; Danton and Pe”
Origin of Mediterranean insular endemics in the Boraginales: integrative evidence from molecular dating and ancestral area reconstruction (2009, background): “…climate similar to the one encountered in the Hercynian Islands (Whittaker & Fernández-Palacios, 2007) and constitute the floristically richest islands of Macaronesia, with c. 1700 species and 680 endemic species or subspecies (Whittaker & Fernández-Palacios, 2007; Reyes-Betancort et al., 2008).”