Hummingbird Conservation in Mexico: The Natural Protected Areas System

Hummingbirds represent an avian family restricted to the Americas that feeds mainly on nectar obtained from ornithophilous plants. In North America (Mexico-USA-Canada), 58 species have been reported out of the 330 total hummingbird species, all of them occurring in Mexico. In this work we analyzed the distribution of hummingbirds in relation to the coverage of the natural protected area system in Mexico using a complementarity analysis to assess the minimum set of areas needed to protect all species. We focused our search mainly to biosphere reserves, as these areas have complete bird lists. Six biosphere reserves included 93% of the hummingbird species. Four species were not included in any biosphere reserve or other natural protected area. To preserve those species, three important bird areas (AICAs as they are known in Spanish) are needed. With these nine areas, all hummingbird species are included. Hummingbird distributions can be classified in six groups that distribute following the major biogeographic regions described for Mexico, including groups using; (1) the main mountain ranges, (2) the Pacific tropical dry forests, (3) the Gulf of Mexico slopes with tropical dry forest, (4) the humid tropical forest in southern Mexico, and both (5) Yucatan and (6) Baja California peninsulas.