Isolation, landscape variability and centres of species endemism in southern Colombia : assessment from satellite imagery.
Dr. Mark Mulligan, Dr. Nick Drake, Department of Geography, King's College London
Joe Tohme, CIAT, Cali, Colombia. (to be confirmed)
The data of the HERB GISmodel will be used to identify landscape units, that is, unique combinations of climate, soil, geologic and forest type characteristics across 14000 km2 of Nariño. The extent of geographic isolation of these unique units will be assessed and this geographic isolation of unique landscape properties correlated with the presence of endemic species. Plant species will be emphasised over animal species because of their lower sensitivity to recent disturbance, their requirement for very specific landscape and climatic conditions and the relatively slow nature of change in their distribution.
The relationship between species endemism and satellite observable landscape features will be critical in the identification of possible endemic species areas on a large scale from satellite imagery and in an understanding of the effect of climatic and land surface change on the distribution of landscape units and the resulting extinction of species.
The development of methods for identifying, often small, endemic areas from satellite and other large scale data is essential to the rapid assessment of biological diversity and identification of important conservation areas of vast tracts of, often inaccessible,and poorly known landscape.
This project is one of the biodiversity core projects for the HERB project.
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