PARENT SESSION
Oral Session #69: Conservation: Biodiversity assessment and reserve design.
Presiding: T. Norton
Wednesday, August 7. 1:00 PM to 4:45 PM. Grand Ballroom Central, Radisson.
Prioritizing avian conservation areas in the Cameroon Highlands: integrating pattern and process.
Graham, Catherine*,1, Languy, Marc2, Smith, Tom3, 1 University of California, Berkeley2 World Wildlife Fund, Nairobi, Kenya3 University of California, Los Angeles
ABSTRACT- The highlands of Cameroon are a biodiversity hotspot; however little rigorous conservation assessment exits to prioritize different mountains in these highlands for conservation and management. In our conservation assessment we used a geographic information systems approach to relate patterns of species richness and endemism with environmental and morphological and genetic data. We identified 22 mountains (including 3 in Nigeria and Bioko in Ecuatorial Guinea) and determined the presence or absence of each of 45 afromontane bird species using an extensive dataset compiled from the literature and recent inventory undertaken by Bird Life International. These species data were used to determine patterns of biodiverisity. Conservation priorities should also conserve evolutionary mechanisms. To evaluate the potential environmental component for intraspecific morphological and genetic variation we quantified the environmental variables for each mountain from remotely sensed data. These included: rainfall, temperature, elevation, which included the area of land in different elevation zones and elevation gradients. We also determined distance among mountains, and potential for historical connections among mountains. This approach provides an integrated interpretation of the multiple spatial and evolutionary factors affecting avian biodiversity.
KEY WORDS: conservation priorities, Cameroon Highlands, birds