The North American Coastal Plain, stretching from the Florida Keys north to Massachusetts, was recently declared a global diversity hotspot — one of the richest and most threatened reservoirs of plant and animal life on Earth. Mike Maunder, associate dean of research engagement in the College of Arts, Sciences & Education, offers perspective on the designation. This is the first in a series on Global Biodiversity Hotspot No. 36.
By Mike Maunder, Ph.D.
We mistakenly presume that the global priorities for species conservation will always be distant, in someone else’s backyard. That illusion has now been firmly dismissed. Conservation International has declared Global Biodiversity Hotspot no. 36, a new addition to the global portfolio of areas possessing an extraordinary diversity of animal, fungi and plant species and simultaneously facing high risk of destruction. The new hotspot, the North American Coastal Plain Hotspot (NACP), stretches from Massachusetts south to the Florida Keys and west to Tamaulipas, Mexico.
Our local Florida habitats now join a global portfolio that includes the Atlantic Forests of Brazil, Madagascar, the Mediterranean Basin, the South African Cape and the Caucasus. As Floridians, we live, drive, work, garden, study, farm and shop in a globally important biodiversity hotspot. Our threatened species now have a global context and our work as conservationists has an enhanced global relevance.
The NACP contains 6170 native vascular plant types. Of these, nearly 29 percent are endemic, or unique, to the new hotspot. This includes over 50 endemic plant genera and a range of monotypic genera.
The hotspot system originally devised by environmental scientists Russ Mittermeier and Norman Myers has profoundly influenced the science and delivery of conservation. It was developed as a tool to identify those precious parts of the world that hold irreplaceable biodiversity. It has proved successful in galvanizing attention and directing funds to a diverse set of landscapes around the world. Using largely botanical inventory and floristic analysis, scientists calculated the previously unrecognized diversity and uniqueness of the NACP, a hotspot hidden in plain sight.
The designation of a hotspot, however is not an academic appellation, it is a mechanism for delivering conservation. Over the last 150 years, the NACP hotspot has suffered extinctions — the Ivory Billed woodpecker no longer haunts the old- growth cypress forests, the endemic Franklinia tree survives only in cultivation, and the dusky seaside sparrow has been lost. The Florida Grasshopper Sparrow may follow them to extinction.
In South Florida, we have some extraordinary habitats, including the sub-tropical hammocks in the Florida Keys, the Pine Rocklands (one of North America’s most threatened habitats), and the Florida scrub. Now each piece of destroyed habitat and each extinction is a global issue, and it is up to us whether we become a case study in degrading a biodiversity hotspot or a case study in restoring a hotspot. Each extinction is both the loss of a global asset but also an irreplaceable erosion of regional identity.
FIU has an extraordinary cadre of biologists, ecologists, hydrologists and conservation biologists who are already helping restore the Everglades and recover threatened plant and animal species. Two conservation institutes have been established at FIU — the International Center for Tropical Botany, a partnership with the National Tropical Botanical Garden, and the Tropical Conservation Institute, a partnership with the Rare Species Conservatory Foundation.
We are working to solve a number of challenges, including the opportunity to develop science-based conservation tools and techniques that can be tested in Florida and applied globally, as well as training the next generation of conservationists. Our work is part of a larger global initiative. Not only are we working in the NACP biodiversity hotspot, we are part of a global initiative to conserve life in all its extraordinary diversity, uniqueness and abundance.
Mike Maunder, Ph.D.
Associate Dean of Research Engagement, College of Arts, Sciences & Education
Interim Director, The Kampong
Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences
Florida International University
mmaunder@fiu.edu
[…] Saving hotspots of environmental diversity from destruction […]
So why does FIU find it acceptable to build over our very own environmental hotpot with Pine Rockland, tropical hammocks, and wetlands, here on campus for a pair of football fields?!? The hypocrisy of what FIU says versus what they do is appalling. You can’t pretend to change the world if you aren’t willing to change yourself first. And I don’t blame the faculty and professor’s for allowing the nature preserve to be built on, I blame the administration. Conserve your own backyard before trying to lead the pack in environmental conservation. FIU better be prepared for dealing with all the legal ramifications if they don’t do an EIA from an objective 3rd party. I’m pretty sure they’ll find plenty of reasons why they shouldn’t build over a piece of the everglades for a cheap 2nd tier practice field for a football team that isn’t even relevant in its own city.
Hi, Emilio:
Thank you for you comment. This is not just about football or soccer. Our students need these fields for recreation and intramural purposes, and SGA is contributing $500,000 to assist in making more recreation space available for students. Additionally, our soccer teams and other teams will use the fields. FIU is the only school in Conference USA without practice fields and our student athletes deserve to be supported through quality facilities. A natural turf field is approximately 15 degrees cooler during the summer, benefiting student athletes and other students using the recreation fields.
The area for the practice fields is the least ecologically valuable part of the preserve. A large portion of the northern part of the preserve has been recently cleared of invasive and exotic trees and plants, and the plan has been to continue with the removal of the remainder of the trees and plants that include Bishofia, shoebutton ardisia, and Brazilian pepper.
The valued species are located in the southern portion of the preserve and those will remain untouched. The loss of trees from the northern third of the preserve can be mitigated with the planting of new trees in the 2.95 acres being added to the preserve.
This is amazing work Mr. Mike its really good to see that world is shifting towards saving our environment and wild life, at last our modern age knows how important our Earth after all is.
[…] FIU: Saving hotspots of environmental diversity from destruction […]