Biogeographic Patterns and Conservation in the South American Cerrado: A Tropical Savanna Hotspot

)ofthe land surface in SouthAmerica,Africa,and Asia.Most people know these savannasbecause oftheir unique assemblages ofabundant and exquisitewildlife;however,they have only recently begun to receive thekind ofattention from a conservation viewpoint that hasbeen given to tropical rain forests (Myers et al.2000).Thelargest,richest,and possibly most threatened tropical sa-vanna in the world is the Cerrado,a large region that occu-pies the center ofSouth America.In an effort to identify theworld’s most important biodiversity hotspots,Myers andcolleagues (2000) ranked the Cerrado among the 25 most im-portant terrestrial hotspots.It is the only region on their listdominated by tropical savannas.The biodiversity ofthe Cer-rado is impressive;in an area of1.86 million km