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- Title
Global patterns in species richness of pelagic seabirds: the Procellariiformes
- Authors
Chown, S. L.; Gaston, K. J.; Williams, P. H.
- Abstract
Quantitative information on large scale spatial patterns of biodiversity remains poor, especially for pelagic systems. In this paper the regional diversity of procellariiforms is mapped worldwide at the species level. These seabirds do not display a conventional latitudinal gradient of decreasing species richness towards high latitudes, but rather are most speciose between 37 and 59S in all ocean basins. Basedon data for foraging ranges, areas with the highest species richnessand the most species with smaller range sizes are all found in the vicinity of New Zealand and its sub-Antarctic islands. In contrast, data for breeding ranges show islands in the southern Indian and Atlantic oceans to have the highest number of breeding species, while theseislands and New Zealand have the most species with smaller range sizes. No northern hemisphere regions are amongst the top ten grid cellsfor foraging and breeding species richness, although Hawaii has the highest species richness of procellariiforms north of the equator. Northern Baja California, Madeira, the Canary islands, and the west coast of South America are all important sites of narrow endemism in thenorthern hemisphere. High species richness and narrow endemism coincide with areas of significant longline fishing activity in the southern hemisphere. Near-minimum sets based on one and three representations demonstrate that if all procellariiform species are to be retained, large areas of the ocean and almost all breeding sites require conservation.
- Subjects
BIODIVERSITY; SPECIES diversity
- Publication
Ecography, 1998, Vol 21, Issue 4, p342
- ISSN
0906-7590
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1600-0587.1998.tb00399.x