Zoology Deprtment, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978, Israel

ISRAEL JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION, Vol. 57, 2011, pp. 205–206 10.1560/IJEE.57.3.205 “Came TO CURSE, BUT LEFT blessing” A RESPONSE TO ROLL ET Al.’s response tO MY RESPONSE TO ROLL ET Al.’s (2009) ARTICLE YORAM YOM-TOV Zoology Deprtment, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978, Israel I am afraid that Roll et al.’s new analyses has failed to convince me. I have only a few comments in regard to their response. 1. My take-home message from Roll et al.’s response is that, according to both their old and new analyses, for mammals, birds, and reptiles Israel’s residual placement is still among the highest percentiles (between the 92nd and 94th percentile) in the Palearctic. Thus, it supports Tchernov and Yom-Tov’s (1988) statement that Israel has a rich fauna in comparison with other temperate region countries. It is no wonder that amphibians, conifers, cycads and ferns are poorly represented in a hot country bordering on a global desert. This latter conclusion is surely equally true also for other organisms inhabiting aquatic or water-rich habitats, such as bryophytes and fresh-water fish. 2. In my response I wrote “as far as I am aware, no zoologist writing on this subject, with the exception of Israel Aharoni (1929), has ever claimed that Israel’s diversity exceeds that of tropical countries”. To this Roll et al. responded “… we do find other works that relate directly to Israel (see, e.g., Netanyahu, 1957; Alon, 1990; Yom-Tov and Werner, 1996)”. My statement, however, remains accurate: if I am not mistaken, neither Alon nor Netanyahu are zoologists, and the exact quotation from Yom-Tov and Werner (the opening sentence to the article) is a qualitative statement: “Extreme biological diversity characterizes the wildlife of Israel.” I stand by this assertion, which (a) does not mention any country or region for comparison and (b) is supported by Roll et al.’s own finding above (point 1). 3. In my previous response I suggested that a valid comparison between Israel and other countries would be “to compare Israel’s diversity to other areas…is… to take an area the size and shape of Israel, and place it randomly in numerous localities in the Nearctic and Palearctic regions or within a range of relevant latitudes (say 30–40 degrees).” Admittedly, this is difficult to do, so Roll, Grenyer, and Meiri approxi- mated my suggested analysis “by comparing Israel’s average richness values in the 10 cells (each of 100 ´ 100 km grid) it occupies, to an average value we calculated for all possible combinations of 10 cells placed in the same orientation as Israel – two across and 5 up.” However, Israel’s land area (comprising Mandatory Palestine and the Golan Heights) is about 28,000 km2, but 10 cells of 10,000 km2 occupy 100,000 E-mail: [email protected] Received 10 April 2011, accepted 11 April 2011. 206 Y. YOM-TOV Isr. J. Ecol. Evol. km2, about 3.5 times greater. Much of this additional area would have been species- poor desert south and east of Israel and the sea west of it, thus rendering this analysis inaccurate. 4. The heading of Roll et al. response is “Not so holy after all”. I had hoped that the authors did not want to take our minor debate into another, non-zoological realms, but since they seem to have done so, I would like to make the following comment. The Bible (Numbers 22) brings the story of the gentile prophet Bil’am who was requested by the king of Moab to curse the Israelites, but after some persuasion from God he ended up blessing them. This story is the source for the Hebrew saying, “came to curse, but left blessing”, hence my title above. Finally, I would like to mention that I agree unreservedly with the last paragraph of Roll et al.’s response. REFERENCES Roll, U., Stone, L., Meiri, S. 2009. Hot-spots facts and artifacts- questioning Israel’s great biod- viersity. Isr. J. Ecol. Evol. 55: 263–279. Roll, U., Stone, L., Grenyer, R., Meiri, S. Not so holy after all. Isr. J. Ecol. Evol. 57: 193–204, this issue. Tchernov, E., Yom-Tov, Y. 1988. Zoogeography of Israel. In: Yom-Tov, Y., Tchernov, E., eds. The Zoogeography of Israel. Dr. W. Junk Publ., Holland. l988. pp. 1–6. Yom-Tov, Y., Werner, Y.L. 1996. Environmental correlates of the geographical distribution of ter- restrial vertebrates in Israel. Israel J. Zool. 42: 307–316. Yom-Tov. Biodiversity of Israel—a response to Roll et al. Isr. J. Ecol. Evol. 57: 181–182, this issue..

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