Patterns of African primate diversity and their evaluation for the selection of conservation areas

This study evaluates spatial patterns of primate diversity and their implications for conservation area-selection in continental Africa and Madagascar. Each cell in a 1 degrees latitude-longitude grid is scored for taxon richness, character richness, rarity-weighted richness (endemism), and threatened taxon richness. The spatial patterns of these measures are plotted and compared. Hotspots of taxon richness and threatened taxon richness are clustered and show a high degree of congruence, but endemic hotspots are scattered and show little coincidence with either. The efficiency of area-selection through complementarity is demonstrated and the influence of the conservation status of the target taxa on that efficiency is investigated. Complementary areas selected on the basis of threatened taxa tend to capture a greater proportion of total taxon richness than areas selected on a more indiscriminate basis. At a finer spatial scale, local sites of high primate taxon richness are similarly shown to contain a greater proportion of threatened taxa and possess threatened taxa of higher conservation status. These results suggest that the protection of areas containing threatened taxa will also lead to the protection of areas of high taxon richness among African primates. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.