Hot Spot

hot spot, any one of several biodiverse regions which requires protection on the grounds that it hosts a significant number of endangered species. There are currently 36 biodiversity hot spots worldwide, home to almost two billion people and covering two-thirds of the planet’s mammal, reptile, bird, plant, and amphibian species while covering less than 3 percent of Earth’s surface.

The concept was introduced by British conservationist Norman Myers in articles written for The Environmentalist in 1988 and 1990, as well as in Nature in 2000. He claimed that a hot spot must meet two criteria: it ought to host more than 1,500 species of endemic vascular plants (that is, vascular plants that live in that area and nowhere else), thereby underlining its uniqueness and irreplaceability, and the region has to have lost 70 percent or more of its primary vegetation as a result of human activities.