Article Micro-Hotspots for Conservation: An Umbrella Tree Species for the Unique Socotran Reptile Fauna Raquel Vasconcelos 1,2,* , Eudald Pujol-Buxó 3, Gustavo A. Llorente 3, Ahmed Saeed 4 and Salvador Carranza 2 1 CIBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, InBIO Laboratório Associado, Universidade do Porto, Campus Agrário de Vairão, R. Pe. Armando Quintas, 4485–661 Vairão, Portugal 2 Institute of Evolutionary Biology (CSIC-Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta 37–49, E-08003 Barcelona, Spain;
[email protected] 3 Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals and Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat (IRBio), Universitat de Barcelona, Avinguda Diagonal, 643–645, 08028 Barcelona, Spain;
[email protected] (E.P.-B.);
[email protected] (G.A.L.) 4 Environment Protection Authority, Socotra Branch, Hadibo, Socotra, Yemen;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] Received: 4 March 2020; Accepted: 19 March 2020; Published: 21 March 2020 Abstract: Umbrella species are defined as species that can be rare and sensitive to human disturbance, whose protection may confer the protection of other co-occurring species. The dragon’s blood tree Dracaena cinnabari Balf.f. was already considered an umbrella species on Socotra Island (Indic Ocean, Yemen) due to its ecological importance for some native biota. We studied the reptile community living on D. cinnabari from Socotra Island. We sampled reptiles on trees across most D. cinnabari populations and applied co-occurrence and network partition analyses to check if the presence of reptiles on D. cinnabari populations was random or structured. Regardless of its patched and scarce actual distribution, we report the use of this tree as a habitat by more than half of the reptile community (12 endemic reptiles).