Biodiversity Hotspots from a Multigroup Perspective: Mosses and Senecios in the Transmexican Volcanic Belt

Geographical information for 703 mosses and Senecios (species of the tribe Senecioneae, Asteraceae) has been analyzed to identify patterns of species richness in the Transmexican Volcanic Belt (TMVB) of Mexico. Because the TMVB holds a high proportion of these taxa (596 mosses out of 980, and 107 Senecios out of 228) in the country, it is considered a high diversity area. However, the biodiversity is not uniform, as shown by the number of species in each of seventy nine 0.5° latitude and 0.5° longitude cells covering the surface area of the mountain range. Nineteen cells were identified as hotspots and further analysis showed that 11 of such hotspots were common to both groups. The application of a heuristic iterative method and a complementarity criterion indicated that the selection of 18 cells would conserve the total diversity of mosses and Senecios found in such hotspots.