Chapter 11 Management of Threatened, High Conservation Value, Forest Hotspots Under Changing Fire Regimes Margarita Arianoutsou , Vittorio Leone , Daniel Moya , Raffaella Lovreglio , Pinelopi Delipetrou , and Jorge de las Heras 11.1 The Biodiversity Hotspots of the Earth Biodiversity hotspots are geographic areas that have high levels of species diversity but signifi cant habitat loss. The term was coined by Norman Myers to indicate areas of the globe which should be a conservation priority (Myers 1988 ) . A biodiversity hotspot can therefore be defi ned as a region with a high proportion of endemic species that has already lost a signifi cant part of its geographic original extent. Each hotspot is a biogeographic unit and features specifi c biota or communities. The current tally includes 34 hotspots (Fig. 11.1 ) where over half of the plant species and 42% of terrestrial vertebrate species are endemic. Such hotspots account for more than 60% of the world’s known plant, bird, mammal, reptile, and amphibian M. Arianoutsou (*) Department of Ecology and Systematics, Faculty of Biology, School of Sciences , National and Kapodistrian University of Athens , Athens , Greece e-mail:
[email protected] V. Leone Faculty of Agriculture , University of Basilicata , Potenza , Italy e-mail:
[email protected] D. Moya • J. de las Heras ETSI Agronomos, University of Castilla-La Mancha , Albacete , Spain e-mail:
[email protected];
[email protected] R. Lovreglio Faculty of Agriculture , University of Sassari , Sardinia , Italy e-mail:
[email protected] P. Delipetrou Department of Botany, Faculty of Biology , School of Sciences, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens , Athens , Greece e-mail:
[email protected] F.