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Understanding and Conserving the Earth’s Biodiversity Hotspots (HOTSPOTS)

Flooded Amazonian rainforest. Photo: P.Gasson.

HOTSPOTS is a successful multi-site Host fellowship for Early Stage Research Training (EST) of the European Commission. However, this project is also a wider venture within Kew and sits at the interface between various scientific teams because the research focuses on various taxa and regions of the globe. Indeed, several other projects complement this EU grant under the same topic, these include for example some EU individual Marie Curie fellowships (e.g. HOTMED) and Darwin Initiative grants (e.g. Mesoamerican Orchids, DNA banking in South Africa).

The Earth’s biodiversity is threatened by human activities yet the sustainable use of biodiversity is fundamental to the future development of humanity. Because financial and human resources for nature conservation are limited, it is appropriate to focus efforts on the richest and most threatened reservoirs of biodiversity. About 34 such biodiversity hotspots have been recently proposed by Conservation International (see Annex 1), based on available data on plant and vertebrate species richness, endemism and threat status. While there is a wide consensus on the choice and geographical delimitation of hotspots, the dynamics of biodiversity in these hotspots and the ecological impacts of predicted biodiversity loss are still only poorly understood. We work towards increasing the knowledge and understanding of biodiversity hotspots, including the Mediterranean Basin, Cameroon (Wet Tropics: Africa team), South Africa (Drylands: Africa team), some European overseas territories (e.g. French Guyana) and other countries where Kew works intensively (e.g. Madagascar). Applying field, molecular and bioinformatics approaches to flagship plants (e.g. orchids, Lamiaceae genera) and animals, we will also train a new generation of multidisciplinary biologists in state-of-the-art methods of evolution, ecology, and conservation. Nine PhD students work within the project, three of them are based in the UK, one each at the Natural History Museum, Imperial College and RBG Kew.

This project benefits from an initial grant from the European Commission (2005-2009). Kew also employs an assistant project manager funded by the Commission to help with the coordination of HOTSPOTS.

Project outputs by 2009 include the publication of 50 high-profile papers (impact factor > 2) and the production of an ‘e-atlas of speciation and biodiversity’. The e-atlas will be available online and link species biodiversity data (distribution, traits; at least 3,000 species) with DNA barcodes and phylogenetic matrices (at least 2 million DNA base pairs).

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