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Invertebrates in general have long been underrepresented in studies on biodiversity, biogeography and conservation. Boundaries of biodiversity hotspots are often delimited intuitively based on floristic endemism and have seldom been empirically tested using actual species distributions, and especially invertebrates. Here we analyse the zoogeography of terrestrial malacofauna from south-eastern Africa (SEA), proposing the first mollusc-based numerical regionalisation for the area. We also discuss patterns and centres of land snail endemism, thence assessing the importance and the delimitation of the Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany (MPA) biodiversity hotspot for their conservation. An incidence matrix compiled for relatively well-collected lineages of land snails and slugs (73 taxa in twelve genera) in 40 a priori operational geographic units was subjected to (a) phenetic agglomerative hierarchical clustering using unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic means (UPGMA), (b) parsimony analysis of endemicity (PAE) and biotic element analysis (BEA). Fulfilling the primary objective of our study, the UPGMA dendrogram provided a hierarchical regionalisation and identified five centres of molluscan endemism for SEA, while the PAE confirmed six areas of endemism, also supported by the BEA. The regionalisation recovers a zoogeographic province similar to the MPA hotspot, but with a conspicuous westward extension into Knysna (towards the Cape). The MPA province, centres and areas of endemism, biotic elements as well as the spatial patterns of species richness and endemism, support the MPA hotspot, but suggest further extensions resulting in a greater MPA region of land snail endemism (also with a northward extension into sky islands—Soutpansberg and Wolkberg), similar to that noted for vertebrates. The greater MPA region provides a more robustly defined region of conservation concern, with centres of endemism serving as local conservation priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The restoration of degraded forests to enhance biodiversity, ecosystem services, as well as climate change mitigation and adaptation is now a major priority in cities around the world. This study evaluated the success of the Buffelsdraai Landfill Site Community Reforestation Project in Durban, South Africa, by assessing ecological attributes. Measures of plant richness, diversity, vegetation structure, invasive alien plants (IAPs) and ecological processes were contrasted across a chronosequence of habitats under restoration (0-year-old, 3-year-old and 5-year-old) and compared with a reference forest habitat (remnant natural forest). Native tree species recruitment and vegetation structure increased with restoration age. Ecological processes, represented by the composition of pollination and seed dispersal traits in all of the habitats under restoration, were similar to the reference habitat. However, low tree density and an increase in IAP cover with an increase in restoration age were identified as threats to reforestation success. We recommend enrichment planting and an effective IAP management strategy to promote more rapid habitat restoration while reducing site maintenance costs. Enrichment planting should not only focus on increasing tree species density and richness, but also on the inclusion of species with missing pollination and seed dispersal categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world's zoogeographical regions were historically defined on an intuitive basis, with no or a limited amount of analytical testing. Here, we aimed (a) to compare analytically defined global zoogeographical clusters for the herpetofauna, birds, mammals, and all these groups taken together (tetrapod vertebrates); (b) to use commonalities among these groups to propose an updated global zoogeographical regionalization; and (c) to describe the resulting regions in terms of vertebrate diversity and characteristic taxa. The clusters were remarkably uniform across taxa and similar to previous intuitively defined regions. Eleven vertebrate-rich (Nearctic, Caribbean, Neotropical, Andean, Palearctic, Afrotropical, Madagascan, Indo-Malaysian, Wallacean, New Guinean, Australian) and three vertebrate-poor (Arctic, Antarctic, Polynesian) zoogeographical regions were derived; the Neotropical, Afrotropical, and Australian had the highest numbers of characteristic tetrapod genera. This updated regionalization provides analytically accurate divisions of the world, relevant to conservation, biogeographical research, and geography education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]