Global Biodiversity Conservation: The Critical Role of Hotspots -- Tough Choices – Approaches towards the Setting of Global Conservation Priorities -- Quantifying Biodiversity – Does It Matter What We Measure?- Human Population and the Hotspots Revisited: a 2010 assessment -- Plant Diversity in a Changing World: Global Centres and Biome-Specific Trends -- Genetic Basis of Human Biodiversity: an Update -- Mediterranean Peninsulas – The Evolution of Hotspots -- Global Change Effects on Alpine Plant Diversity -- European Hotspots as Evidenced by the Palaearctic Distribution of Songbirds -- Patterns and Hotspots of Carabid Beetle Diversity in the Palaearctic – Insights from a Hyperdiverse Invertebrate Taxon -- A Neglected Diversity Hotspot: Genetic Variation in the Carpathians -- Conservation in a Biodiversity Hotspot: Insights from Cultural and Community Perspectives in Madagascar -- The Kingdom of the Frogs – Anuran Radiations in Madagascar -- Hotspots, Conservation and Diseases: Madagascar’s megadiverse amphibians and the potential impact of chytridiomycosis -- Impacts of Biofuel Expansion in Biodiversity Hotspots -- Forests of East Australia: The 35th Biodiversity Hotspot -- Status and Threats in the Dynamic Landscapes of Northern Australia’s Tropical Rainforest Biodiversity Hotspot: the Wet Tropics -- Explosive Speciation and Adaptive Radiation of East African Cichlid Fishes -- Inter- and Intraspecific Biodiversity in Southeast Asian Rodents: New Insights for their Conservation -- The Amphibians and Reptiles of Sulawesi: Underestimated Diversity in a Dynamic Environment -- The Brazilian Atlantic Forest: A Shrinking Biodiversity Hotspot -- Sustainable Development and Conservation of Biodiversity Hotspots in Latin America: The Case of Ecuador -- When Hotspots Meet: The Galápagos Islands – A Hotspot of Species Endemism Based on a Volcanic Hotspot Centre -- Hotspots on Global Coral Reefs -- Biodiversity of a Unique Environment: the Southern Ocean Benthos Shaped and Threatened by Climate Change -- Biodiversity Hotspots – Concluding Remarks and Perspectives.  .

Biodiversity and its conservation are among the main global topics in science and politics and perhaps the major challenge for the present and coming generations. This book written by international experts from different disciplines comprises general chapters on diversity and its measurement, human impacts on biodiversity hotspots on a global scale, human diversity itself and various geographic regions exhibiting high levels of diversity. The areas covered range from genetics and taxonomy to evolutionary biology, biogeography and the social sciences. In addition to the classic hotspots in the tropics, the book also highlights various other ecosystems harbouring unique species communities including coral reefs and the Southern Ocean. The approach taken considers, but is not limited to, the original hotspot definition sensu stricto and presents a chapter introducing the 35th hotspot, the forests of East Australia. While, due to a bias in data availability, the majority of contributions on particular taxa deal with vertebrates and plants, some also deal with the less-studied invertebrates. This book will be essential reading for anyone involved with biodiversity, particularly researchers and practitioners in the fields of conservation biology, ecology and evolution.