Plant Conservation in the Caribbean Island Biodiversity Hotspot Author(s): Mike Maunder, Angela Leiva, Eugenio Santiago-Valentín, Dennis W. Stevenson, Pedro Acevedo-Rodríguez, Alan W. Meerow, Milcíades Mejía, Colin Clubbe and Javier Francisco-Ortega Source: Botanical Review, Vol. 74, No. 1, Caribbean Biodiversity (May, 2008), pp. 197-207 Published by: Springer on behalf of New York Botanical Garden Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20640694 . Accessed: 06/03/2014 20:50 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. New York Botanical Garden Press and Springer are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Botanical Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 130.216.158.78 on Thu, 6 Mar 2014 20:50:46 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Bot. Rev. (2008) 74:197-207 DOI 10.1007/s 12229-008-9007-7 Plant Conservation in the Caribbean Island BiodiversityHotspot Mike Maunder1,2,10 Angela Leiva3 Eugenio Santiago-Valentin4 Dennis W. Stevenson5 Pedro Acevedo-Rodriguez6 Alan W. Meerow1,7 Mildades Mejia8 Colin Clubbe9 Javier Francisco-Ortega1,2 1 Center for Tropical Plant Conservation, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, Coral Gables, Miami, FL 33156,USA 2 Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199, USA 3 Jardin Botanico Nacional, Calabazar, Boyeros, CP. 19230 Havana, Cuba 4 Jardin Botanico de Puerto Rico, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Apartado Postal 364984, San Juan PR 00936 Puerto Rico, USA 5 New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, New York, NY 10458, USA 6 United States National Herbarium, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013, USA 7 United States Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Research Service, Subtropical Horticulture Research Station, Miami, FL 33158, USA 8 Jardin Botanico Nacional, Apartado Postal 21-9, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic 9 The Herbarium, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 3AB, UK 10 Author for Correspondence; e-mail: [email protected] Published online: 3 May 2008 ? The New York Botanical Garden 2008 Abstract While the Caribbean is a recognized "biodiversity hotspot", plant conservation, has not received adequate attention; particularly, given the high levels of endemism inmany plant groups. Besides establishing protected areas, thereneeds to be a sustained effort to study the taxonomy, systematics and ecology of the flora. Recent phylogenetic studies have shown high levels of endemism and conservation studies indicate a large propotion of the flora is threatenedwith extinction. Eight recommendations are given for plant conservation in the region. Keywords Biodiversity hotspot Caribbean islands Ecosystem Plant conservation Introduction The Caribbean Islands, comprising the Bahamas, Greater and Lesser Antilles and some islands located off the northern coast of South America, represent themost important insular system of theNew World. As one of the 34 biodiversity hotspots sensu Mittermeier et al. (2004), these islands represent a global priority for conservation. In a recent study based on data sets that integrated biological and social factors, Shi et al. (2005) found the Caribbean Islands to be one of the six ? Springer This content downloaded from 130.216.158.78 on Thu, 6 Mar 2014 20:50:46 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 198 M. Maunder, et al. "hottest" hotspots. Similar conclusions can be drawn from other studies that identify theCaribbean Islands as a hotspot with unusually high levels of habitat loss (Brooks et al, 2002). The conservation of plant resources on each of these islands is an imperative for ensuring sustainable development and the provision of essential ecosystem services (Kress & Horvitz, 2005). These extraordinary, and often overlooked islands, have been an arena for some of the most important studies in evolutionary biology, including the role of vicariance and dispersal as biogeographical avenues for speciation (Rosen, 1976; Hedges et al, 1992), the relationship between area and species richness (Schoener et al., 2005), and the evolution of convergent morphological traitsunder similar ecological conditions (Losos et al., 2006). Today they are testing grounds for the application of conservation biology. The early colonial settlement of the Caribbean was driven in large part by the quest for commercially valuable plants e.g., sugar, cotton, tobacco, indigo, jalap, cassia, sassafras, brazil wood and guaiacum, indeed these high value crops, both wild harvested and plantation grown, defined the mercantile world view of the islands. The Caribbean was one of the first contact zones between the tropicalworld and western science?the focus of zealous colonial bioprospecting and collecting (Santiago-Valentin & Olsmtead, 2004; Schiebinger & Swan, 2005). Indeed the Caribbean islands have been subject to the classic pattern of island degradation where successive natural resources have been exhausted and abandoned in an unstable plantation based economy (Grove, 1995). This early colonial period in the Caribbean also influenced early environmental thinkingwith forest and watershed protection promoted by 18th century Utopian colonial environmentalists such as Alexander Anderson (Grove, 1995). Indeed the Main Ridge Forest Reserve on Tobago is very likely the oldest Forest Reserve in theWestern Hemisphere where 2,430 ha of virgin forest was set aside in 1765 for "the protection of the rains" (Ramdial, 1980). Today, the challenge for the botanical community in the Caribbean is very different. The Caribbean is a vibrant cultural, political and linguisticmosaic. The islands not only encompass relatively affluent economies supported by agriculture, tourism and banking, but also include nations characterized as some of the poorest in theworld?where a paucity of basic plant resources (e.g. firewood, forage and crop land) defies all attempts at economic development. Each island holds a unique portfolio of species and habitats that is increasingly threatenedwith degradation and extinction (Westermann, 1952, 1953; Leiva, 1989; Adams, 1997). To retain this diversity of plants and habitats and the associated ecosystem services requires a commitment to building national and regional capacity and to preserving and restoring the natural areas that sustain the life and economy of the region (Leiva, 1989; Garcia & Roersch, 1996; Clubbe, 2005). The Decline of Plant Diversity in the Caribbean Islands The botanical diversity of the Caribbean Island hotspot is extraordinary.While the land areas are relatively small, totaling circa 229,550 km2, the islands support a native flora of ca. 11,000 species and 1,520 genera of seed plants (Acevedo Springer This content downloaded from 130.216.158.78 on Thu, 6 Mar 2014 20:50:46 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Plant conservation in the Caribbean Island biodiversity hotspot 199 Rodriguez, 2007). Work by Francisco-Ortega et al. (2007, In press) shows an amazingly high level of endemism at the genus level with a high proportion of monotypic genera. The Hotspot possesses 182 endemic genera recognized as accepted taxonomic entities (Francisco-Ortega et al., 2007, In press), 94 of these genera aremonotypic (ca. 50%). In global terms, theCaribbean is comparable to the Madagascar (260) and Cape Floristic (160) hotspots for number of endemic genera (see Mittermeier et al, 2004; Francisco-Ortega et al., 2007). However, given the relatively small size of the landmass and the highly fragmented nature of surviving habitats, this represents an extraordinary packing of endemic lineages into a mosaic of increasingly fragmented refugia. The surviving biodiversity of the Caribbean has weathered centuries of overharvesting and habitat loss. Indeed this hotspot has suffered the near complete loss of its indigenous cultures and the decimation of all unique endemic vertebrate guilds, for instance, the loss of the endemic macaws (Raffaele et al., 1988; Woods, 1990; Pregill & Crother, 1999; Ottenwalder, 2001). Centuries of colonial agriculture have resulted in the near complete loss of many lowland habitats, particularly the seasonally dry forests of the Caribbean. In the last 30 years there has been some significant progress in producing "red-lists" of threatened species following guidelines from the IUCN (IUCN, 1994, 2001). Assessments based on early IUCN guidelines are available for Cuba (Borhidi & Muniz, 1983) and Jamaica (Kelly, 1988). More recently,Cuban botanists have produced an initial red list for Cuban endemics that covers over 20% of the flora of this island (Rankin-Rodriguez & Areces-Berazain, 2003; Berazain-Iturralde et al., 2005). Preliminary assessment for about 400 Cuban species of vascular plants has been recently published (Gonzalez Torres et al., 2007) and conservation strategies and recovery plans have been outlined for several taxa (e.g., United States Fish andWildlife Service, 1993, 1998, 2005; Leiva et al., In press). In addition, Zona et al. (2007) have reviewed and assessed the conservation status ofWest Indian palms. Some additional