Hotspots of biodiversity and conservation priorities: a methodological approach

This is a methodological paper aimed at comparing methods to assess regional biodiversity. In more detail we compared the effectiveness of hotspots of species richness, of rarity and complementarity in evaluating local animal diversity. Species distributions were sampled over a 10×10 km UTM grid across the Italian territory. We considered 471 species of zygaenids, butterflies, carabines, amphibians and reptiles. Hotspots were analysed at national and regional levels and considered taxa either all together, or separately. To test the predictive value of complementarity analysis, we initially excluded zygaenids. At national level, of 3218 10×10 km UTM quadrats sampled, 161 (5% of total) had highest species richness. Islands included only 1 hotspot (Sicily). Sixty‐eight species (14.4%) were not represented. They were mainly endemic (65%), insular (73.5%), or rare (25%). Working taxon by taxon, hotspots numbered 433. Only 85 (19.6%) were hotspots contemporaneously for two taxa and only 9 were hotspots for 3 t...