Identifying areas of high biodiversity is important when prioritizing areas for conservation. Such hotspots can be defined by the number of species or levels of endemism, but richness alone is considered to have limited value for highlighting conservation priorities.
In this study, researchers propose 'bioquality' as a novel indicator of conservation priority—defined as biodiversity value measured by the concentration of globally rare taxa in a given plant community. Calculated by categorizing species based on an assessment of their global range and then summarizing in a Genetic Heat Index (GHI), bioquality can complement other parameters like richness and rarity.
Compiling occurrence data for more than 40,000 plant species from GBIF and other sources, the authors derive GHI scores for East Africa at varying resolutions, identifying hotspots and data gaps at both regional and local levels. To help fill gaps in sampling, the paper suggests Rapid Botanic Surveys, combining strengths of taxonomic and ecological recording, aiming to provide information about all plant species, community types and location of hotspots in a given area.