Go to the following links below. Choose one hotspot that is near the place where you currently live or have lived. Some links to help you: Map: Biodiversity Hotspots
Go to the following links below. Choose one hotspot that is near the place where you currently live or have lived.
Some links to help you:
Map: Biodiversity Hotspots
Hotspots: Conservation International
The IUCN List of Threatened Species
Study the information about that biodiversity hotspot that you have chosen.
Then answer the following questions:
Which biodiversity hotspot did you choose to write about? (Give the name)
Where is it located? (Give the world, region and country)
What are two important species (give common and scientific names) that live there? Why are they important?
What is one endangered species (give common and scientific name) that lives there? Why is it endangered?
List three other interesting facts that you have learned about this place.
List one thing you feel could be done to help save it.
Any materials cited should be referenced using the style guidelines established by the American Psychological Association (APA).
Location: Florida
Species are the building blocks of Earth’s life-support systems. We all depend on them.
But our planet’s “biodiversity,” the vast array of life on Earth, faces a crisis of historic proportions. Development, urbanization, pollution, disease — they’re all wreaking havoc on the tree of life. Today, species are going extinct at the fastest rate since the mass extinction of the dinosaurs.
To stem this crisis, we must protect the places where biodiversity lives. But species aren’t evenly distributed around the planet. Certain areas have large numbers of endemic species — those found nowhere else. Many of these are heavily threatened by habitat loss and other human activities. These areas are the biodiversity hotspots, 36 regions where success in conserving species can have an enormous impact in securing our global biodiversity.
The forests and other remnant habitats in hotspots represent just 2.5% of Earth’s land surface. But you’d be hard-pressed to find another 2.5% of the planet that’s more important.