Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, the Cape sugarbird is found exclusively in southwestern South Africa and is therefore said to be endemic to that particular part of the world. An endemic species can also be referred to as an endemism or, in scientific literature, as an endemite . Similarly many species found in the Western ghats of India are examples of endemism.
52-479: The Cornaceae are a cosmopolitan family of flowering plants in the order Cornales . The family contains approximately 85 species in two genera, Alangium and Cornus . They are mostly trees and shrubs, which may be deciduous or evergreen, although a few species are perennial herbs. Members of the family usually have opposite or alternate simple leaves, four- or five-parted flowers clustered in inflorescences or pseudanthia , and drupaceous fruits. The family
104-554: A cosmopolitan distribution is the range of a taxon that extends across most or all of the surface of the Earth, in appropriate habitats ; most cosmopolitan species are known to be highly adaptable to a range of climatic and environmental conditions, though this is not always so. Killer whales ( orcas ) are among the most well-known cosmopolitan species on the planet, as they maintain several different resident and transient (migratory) populations in every major oceanic body on Earth, from
156-402: A broad range of environmental tolerances or from rapid dispersal compared to the time needed for speciation . Endemism Endemism is an important concept in conservation biology for measuring biodiversity in a particular place and evaluating the risk of extinction for species. Endemism is also of interest in evolutionary biology , because it provides clues about how changes in
208-556: A cave environment limits an organism's ability to disperse, since caves are often not connected to each other. One hypothesis for how closely related troglobite species could become isolated from one another in different caves is that their common ancestor may have been less restricted to cave habitats. When climate conditions became unfavorable, the ancestral species was extirpated from the surface, but some populations survived in caves, and diverged into different species due to lack of gene flow between them. Isolated islands commonly develop
260-413: A cosmopolitan species is an endemic (native) species, or one that is found only in a single geographical location. Endemism usually results in organisms with specific adaptations to one particular climate or region, and the species would likely face challenges if placed in a different environment. There are far more examples of endemic species than cosmopolitan species; one example being the snow leopard ,
312-455: A defined geographical area. Other terms that sometimes are used interchangeably, but less often, include autochthonal, autochthonic, and indigenous; however, these terms do not reflect the status of a species that specifically belongs only to a determined place. The word endemic is from Neo-Latin endēmicus , from Greek ἔνδημος, éndēmos , "native". Endēmos is formed of en meaning "in", and dēmos meaning "the people". The word entered
364-478: A euendemic the vicariance was geologic in nature, such as the movement of tectonic plates, but in a cryptoendemic the disjunct distribution was due to the extinction of the intervening populations. There is yet another possible situation that can cause a disjunct distribution, where a species is able to colonize new territories by crossing over areas of unsuitable habitat, such as plants colonizing an island – this situation they dismiss as extremely rare and do not devise
416-402: A holoendemic is a cosmopolitan species. Stenoendemics, also known as local endemics, have a reduced distribution and are synonymous with the word 'endemics' in the traditional sense, whereas euryendemics have a larger distribution -both these have distributions that are more or less continuous. A rhoendemic has a disjunct distribution . Where this disjunct distribution is caused by vicariance, in
468-452: A large range but be rare throughout this range. The evolutionary history of a species can lead to endemism in multiple ways. Allopatric speciation , or geographic speciation, is when two populations of a species become geographically separated from each other and as a result develop into different species. In isolated areas where there is little possibility for organisms to disperse to new places, or to receive new gene flow from outside,
520-437: A limited range. Paleoendemism is more or less synonymous with the concept of a ' relict species ': a population or taxon of organisms that were more widespread or more diverse in the past. A 'relictual population' is a population that currently occurs in a restricted area, but whose original range was far wider during a previous geologic epoch . Similarly, a 'relictual taxon' is a taxon (e.g. species or other lineage) that
572-513: A much larger area, but died out in most of their range, are called paleoendemic , in contrast to neoendemic species, which are new species that have not dispersed beyond their range. The ginkgo tree, Ginkgo biloba , is one example of a paleoendemic species. In many cases biological factors, such as low rates of dispersal or returning to the spawning area ( philopatry ), can cause a particular group of organisms to have high speciation rates and thus many endemic species. For example, cichlids in
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#1733086285540624-522: A name for. Traditionally, none of Myers and de Grave's categories would be considered endemics except stenoendemics. Some environments are particularly conducive to the development of endemic species, either because they allow the persistence of relict taxa that were extirpated elsewhere, or because they provide mechanisms for isolation and opportunities to fill new niches. Serpentine soils act as ' edaphic islands' of low fertility and these soils lead to high rates of endemism. These soils are found in
676-461: A number of endemics. Many species and other higher taxonomic groups exist in very small terrestrial or aquatic islands, which restrict their distribution. The Devil's Hole pupfish, Cyprinodon diabolis , has its whole native population restricted to a spring that is 20 x 3 meters, in Nevada 's Mojave Desert . This 'aquatic island' is connected to an underground basin; however, the population present in
728-634: A planet too large for local populations to interbreed routinely with each other include genetic effects such as ring species , such as in the Larus gulls, and the formation of clines such as in Drosophila . Cosmopolitan distributions can be observed both in extinct and extant species. For example, Lystrosaurus was cosmopolitan in the Early Triassic after the Permian-Triassic extinction event . In
780-520: A species found only in Central Asian mountain ranges, an environment to which the cats have adapted over millions of years. The caveat "in appropriate habitat" is used to qualify the term "cosmopolitan distribution", excluding in most instances polar regions, extreme altitudes, oceans, deserts, or small, isolated islands. For example, the housefly is highly cosmopolitan, yet is neither oceanic nor polar in its distribution. The term pandemism also
832-524: A species from being endemic. In theory, the term "endemic" could be applied on any scale; for example, the cougar is endemic to the Americas, and all known life is endemic to Earth. However, endemism is normally used only when a species has a relatively small or restricted range. This usage of "endemic" contrasts with "cosmopolitan." Endemics are not necessarily rare; some might be common where they occur. Likewise, not all rare species are endemics; some may have
884-500: A very restrictive range, due to the unique environmental characteristics. The Kula Volcano , one of the fourteen volcanoes in Turkey , is home to 13 endemic species of plants. Endemics might more easily become endangered or extinct because they are already restricted in distribution. This puts endemic plants and animals at greater risk than widespread species during the rapid climate change of this century. Some scientists claim that
936-625: A wide variety of evolutionary histories, so researchers often use more specialized terms that categorize endemic species based upon how they came to be endemic to an area. Different categorizations of endemism also capture the uniqueness and irreplaceability of biodiversity hotspots differently and impact how those hotspots are defined, affecting how resources for conservation are allocated. The first subcategories were first introduced by Claude P. E. Favager and Juliette Contandriopoulis in 1961: schizoendemics, apoendemics and patroendemics. Using this work, Ledyard Stebbins and Jack Major then introduced
988-437: A wider distributed taxon that has become reproductively isolated without becoming (potentially) genetically isolated – a schizoendemic has the same chromosome count as the parent taxon it evolved from. An apoendemic is a polyploid of the parent taxon (or taxa in the case of allopolyploids ), whereas a patroendemic has a lower, diploid chromosome count than the related, more widely distributed polyploid taxon. Mikio Ono coined
1040-527: Is home to some indigenous species within the Myrmeleontidae, but nonetheless no one species, nor even genus, of the Myrmeleontidae is cosmopolitan. Conversely, partly as a result of human introduction of unnatural apiculture to the New World, Apis mellifera probably is the only cosmopolitan member of its family; the rest of the family Apidae have modest distributions. Even where a cosmopolitan population
1092-430: Is in use, but not all authors are consistent in the sense in which they use the term; some speak of pandemism mainly in referring to diseases and pandemics , and some as a term intermediate between endemism and cosmopolitanism, in effect regarding pandemism as subcosmopolitanism . This means near cosmopolitanism, but with major gaps in the distribution , say, complete absence from Australia. Terminology varies, and there
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#17330862855401144-434: Is only possible where 1.) the taxonomy of the species in question is not in dispute; 2.) the species distribution is accurately known; and 3.) the species have relatively small distributional ranges. In a 2000 article, Myers et al . used the standard of having more than 0.5% of the world's plant species being endemic to the region to designate 25 geographical areas of the world as biodiversity hotspots . In response to
1196-578: Is primarily distributed in northern temperate regions and tropical Asia. In northern temperate areas, Cornaceae are well known from the dogwoods Cornus . The systematics of Cornaceae has been remarkably unsettled and controversial, and many genera have been added to it and removed from it over time. (One researcher called it a "dustbin".) Molecular phylogenetics have clarified the relatedness of some associated genera, and at least nine genera that were previously included in Cornaceae have been eliminated from
1248-535: Is recognised as a single species, such as indeed Apis mellifera , there generally will be variation between regional sub-populations. Such variation commonly is at the level of subspecies , varieties or morphs , whereas some variation is too slight or inconsistent for formal recognition. For an example of subspecific variation, consider the East African lowland honey bee ( Apis mellifera scutellata )—best known for being hybridized with various European subspecies of
1300-508: Is some debate whether the true opposite of endemism is pandemism or cosmopolitanism. A related concept in biogeography is that of oceanic cosmopolitanism and endemism. Rather than allow ubiquitous travel, the World Ocean is complicated by physical obstacles such as temperature gradients. These prevent migration of tropical species between the Atlantic and Indian/Pacific oceans. Conversely,
1352-618: Is the sole surviving representative of a formerly diverse group. The concept of phylogenetic endemism has also been used to measure the relative uniqueness of the species endemic to an area. In measurements that incorporate phylogenetic endemism, branches of the evolutionary tree are weighted by how narrowly they are distributed. This captures not only the total number of taxa endemic to the area (taxonomic endemism), but also how distant those species are from their living relatives. Schizoendemics, apoendemics and patroendemics can all be classified as types of neoendemics. Schizoendemics arise from
1404-514: Is † Hironoia fusiformis , an extinct taxon collected from the Futaba Group sediments at Kamitikaba, Japan . Synapomorphies of the fruits of the fossil occur also in extant Cornaceae. The age of the sediments is of early Coniacian to early Santonian (about 88 Ma). Although the mosaic of characters in Hironoia precludes assignment to an extant genus, the fiber rather than sclereid composition of
1456-478: The Arctic Circle to Antarctica and every coastal and open-water region in-between. Such a taxon (usually a species ) is said to have a cosmopolitan distribution, or exhibit cosmopolitanism , as a species; another example, the rock dove (commonly referred to as a ' pigeon '), in addition to having been bred domestically for centuries, now occurs in most urban areas around the world. The extreme opposite of
1508-554: The Arctic tern occur from the Arctic to the Southern Ocean , but at any one season of the year they are likely to be largely in passage or concentrated at only one end of the range. Also, some such species breed only at one end of the range. Seen purely as an aspect of cosmopolitanism, such distributions could be seen as temporal, seasonal variations. Other complications of cosmopolitanism on
1560-573: The Ethiopian Highlands , or large bodies of water far from other lakes, like Lake Baikal , can also have high rates of endemism. Endemism can also be created in areas which act as refuges for species during times of climate change like ice ages . These changes may have caused species to become repeatedly restricted to regions with unusually stable climate conditions, leading to high concentrations of endemic species in areas resistant to climate fluctuations. Endemic species that used to exist in
1612-479: The western honey bee to create the so-called " African killer bee "—and the Cape bee , which is the subspecies Apis mellifera capensis ; both of them are in the same cosmopolitan species Apis mellifera , but their ranges barely overlap. Other cosmopolitan species, such as the house sparrow and osprey , present similar examples, but in yet other species there are less familiar complications: some migratory birds such as
Cornaceae - Misplaced Pages Continue
1664-935: The Balkan Peninsula, Turkey, Alps, Cuba, New Caledonia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, the North American Appalachians, and scattered distribution in California, Oregon, and Washington and elsewhere. For example, Mayer and Soltis considered the widespread subspecies Streptanthus glandulosus subsp. glandulosus which grows on normal soils, to be a paleoendemic, whereas closely related endemic forms of S. glandulosus occurring on serpentine soil patches are neoendemics which recently evolved from subsp. glandulosus . Obligate cave-dwelling species, known as troglobites, are often endemic to small areas, even to single individual caves, because cave habitats are by nature restricted, isolated, and fragmented. A high level of adaptation to
1716-561: The East African Rift Lakes have diversified into many more endemic species than the other fish families in the same lakes, possibly due to such factors. Plants that become endemic on isolated islands are often those which have a high rate of dispersal and are able to reach such islands by being dispersed by birds. While birds are less likely to be endemic to a region based on their ability to disperse via flight, there are over 2,500 species which are considered endemic, meaning that
1768-474: The English language as a loan word from French endémique , and originally seems to have been used in the sense of diseases that occur at a constant amount in a country, as opposed to epidemic diseases, which are exploding in cases. The word was used in biology in 1872 to mean a species restricted to a specific location by Charles Darwin . The less common term 'precinctive' has been used by some entomologists as
1820-550: The Northern marine regions and Southern Ocean are separated by the tropics , too warm for many species to traverse. Another aspect of cosmopolitanism is that of ecological limitations. A species that is apparently cosmopolitan because it occurs in all oceans might in fact occupy only littoral zones , or only particular ranges of depths, or only estuaries , for example. Analogously, terrestrial species might be present only in forests, or mountainous regions, or sandy arid regions or
1872-537: The above, the World Wildlife Fund has split the world into a few hundred geographical ' ecoregions '. These have been designed to include as many species as possible that only occur in a single ecoregion, and these species are thus 'endemics' to these ecoregions. Since plenty of these ecoregions have a high prevalence of endemics existing within them, many National Parks have been formed around or within them to further promote conservation. The Caparaó National Park
1924-583: The concept. In their view, everything is endemic, even cosmopolitan species are endemic to Earth, and earlier definitions restricting endemics to specific locations are wrong. Thus the subdivisions neoendemics and paleoendemics are without merit regarding the study of distributions, because these concepts consider that an endemic has a distribution limited to one place. Instead, they propose four different categories: holoendemics, euryendemics, stenoendemics and rhoendemics. In their scheme cryptoendemics and euendemics are further subdivisions of rhoendemics. In their view,
1976-518: The concepts of neoendemics and paleoendemics in 1965 to describe the endemics of California. Endemic taxa can also be classified into autochthonous, allochthonous, taxonomic relicts and biogeographic relicts. Paleoendemism refers to species that were formerly widespread but are now restricted to a smaller area. Neoendemism refers to species that have recently arisen, such as through divergence and reproductive isolation or through hybridization and polyploidy in plants, and have not dispersed beyond
2028-587: The cool climates of mountain peaks are geographically isolated. For example, in the Alpes-Maritimes department of France, Saxifraga florulenta is an endemic plant that may have evolved in the Late Miocene and could have once been widespread across the Mediterranean Basin . Volcanoes also tend to harbor a number of endemic species. Plants on volcanoes tend to fill a specialized ecological niche , with
2080-484: The environment cause species to undergo range shifts (potentially expanding their range into a larger area, or becoming extirpated from an area they once lived), go extinct, or diversify into more species. The extreme opposite of an endemic species is one with a cosmopolitan distribution , having a global or widespread range. A rare alternative term for a species that is endemic is "precinctive", which applies to species (and other taxonomic levels) that are restricted to
2132-577: The equivalent of 'endemic'. Precinctive was coined in 1900 by David Sharp when describing the Hawaiian insects, as he was uncomfortable with the fact that the word ' endemic ' is often associated with diseases. 'Precinctive' was first used in botany by Vaughan MacCaughey in Hawaii in 1917. A species is considered to be endemic to the area where it is found naturally, to the exclusion of other areas; presence in captivity or botanical gardens does not disqualify
Cornaceae - Misplaced Pages Continue
2184-645: The fruit places it within the Nyssaceae -Mastixiaceae. Other possible Cornaceae from Cretaceous sediments include endocarps resembling Cornus from the Santonian - Campanian mesofossil assemblage of Åsen . In slightly younger Late Cretaceous sediments ( Maastrichtian ) four genera of fossil mastixioid fruits ( Beckettia , Eomastixia , Mastixicarpum and Mastixiopsis ) have been described from Germany . [REDACTED] Media related to Cornaceae at Wikimedia Commons Cosmopolitan family In biogeography ,
2236-430: The like. Such distributions might be patchy, or extended, but narrow. Factors of such a nature are taken widely for granted, so they seldom are mentioned explicitly in mentioning cosmopolitan distributions. Cosmopolitanism of a particular species or variety should not be confused with cosmopolitanism of higher taxa. For example, the family Myrmeleontidae is cosmopolitan in the sense that every continent except Antarctica
2288-474: The modern world, the orca , the blue whale , and the great white shark all have cosmopolitan distribution, extending over most of the Earth's oceans . The wasp Copidosoma floridanum is another example, as it is found around the world. Other examples include humans , cats , dogs , the western honey bee , brown rats , the foliose lichen Parmelia sulcata , and the mollusc genus Mytilus . The term can also apply to some diseases. It may result from
2340-452: The order Cornales entirely, but the circumscription of Cornaceae is still unclear. The Angiosperm Phylogeny Group usually defines Cornaceae as comprising the genera Cornus and Alangium as well as five genera now separated into the family Nyssaceae . However, many of these genera are sometimes split off into their own families (e.g. Alangiaceae ), and the usage remains inconsistent. The oldest fossil that can be related to Cornaceae
2392-656: The pool remains isolated. Other areas very similar to the Galapagos Islands of the Pacific Ocean exist and foster high rates of endemism. The Socotra Archipelago of Yemen, located in the Indian Ocean, has seen a new endemic species of parasitic leech, Myxobdella socotrensis, appear. This species is restricted to freshwater springs, where it may attach to and feed upon native crabs. Mountains can be seen as ' sky islands ': refugia of endemics because species that live in
2444-404: The presence of endemic species in an area is a good method to find geographical regions that can be considered priorities for conservation. Endemism can thus be studied as a proxy for measuring biodiversity of a region. The concept of finding endemic species that occur in the same region to designate 'endemism hotspots' was first proposed by Paul Müller in a 1973 book. According to him, this
2496-606: The rate of endemism is particularly high. For example, many endemic species are found on remote islands , such as Hawaii , the Galápagos Islands and Socotra . Populations on an island are isolated, with little opportunity to interbreed with outside populations, which eventually causes reproductive isolation and separation into different species. Darwin's finches in the Galápagos archipelago are examples of species endemic to islands. Similarly, isolated mountainous regions like
2548-480: The species is restricted to an area less than five million hectares (twelve million acres). Microorganisms were traditionally not believed to form endemics. The hypothesis 'everything is everywhere', first stated in Dutch by Lourens G.M. Baas Becking in 1934, describes the theory that the distribution of organisms smaller than 2 mm is cosmopolitan where habitats occur that support their growth. Endemism can reflect
2600-424: The term 'aneuendemics' in 1991 for species that have more or fewer chromosomes than their relatives due to aneuploidy . Pseudoendemics are taxa that have possibly recently evolved from a mutation. Holoendemics is a concept introduced by Richardson in 1978 to describe taxa that have remained endemic to a restricted distribution for a very long time. In a 2000 paper, Myers and de Grave further attempted to redefine
2652-565: The threatened nature of a geographic region. A similar pattern had been found regarding mammals, Lasioglossum bees, Plusiinae moths, and swallowtail butterflies in North America: these different groups of taxa did not correlate geographically with each other regarding endemism and species richness. Especially using mammals as flagship species proved to be a poor system of identifying and protecting areas of high invertebrate biodiversity. In response to this, other scientists again defended
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#17330862855402704-555: Was formed in the Atlantic Forest , a biodiversity hotspot located in Brazil, in order to help protect valuable and vulnerable species. Other scientists have argued that endemism is not an appropriate measure of biodiversity, because the levels of threat or biodiversity are not actually correlated to areas of high endemism. When using bird species as an example, it was found that only 2.5% of biodiversity hotspots correlate with endemism and
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