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Conservation never has enough money to protect every species. Norman Myers turned that hard fact into a question: if you can protect only a little land, which land saves the most? His answer, the biodiversity hotspot, now appears in your NCERT Biodiversity chapter. This post explains the idea, works through the numbers, and lists the mistakes students make with it.
Who was Norman Myers?
Myers was a British environmentalist who lived from 1934 to 2019. An obituary in Nature Ecology & Evolution by Stuart Pimm and Peter Raven describes him as a conservationist "who changed how we think about threats to biodiversity". Its reference list includes his 1979 book The Sinking Ark, on the problem of disappearing species, and his work on tropical forests for the US National Research Council.
Where did the hotspot idea come from?
In 1988 Myers published Threatened biotas: "hot spots" in tropical forests in The Environmentalist. Two years later he followed it with an expanded hot-spots analysis in the same journal. The idea was to look for places where two things are true at once: a very high number of species that live nowhere else, and fast loss of their habitat.
The best-known version came in 2000. Myers, Russell Mittermeier, Cristina Goettsch Mittermeier, Gustavo da Fonseca and Jennifer Kent published Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities in Nature. Their abstract frames the problem as one of priorities: how can conservation support the most species at the least cost? It defines hotspots as areas where "exceptional concentrations of endemic species are undergoing exceptional loss of habitat".
The headline result: as many as 44% of all vascular plant species and 35% of all species in four vertebrate groups are confined to 25 hotspots, which together make up only 1.4% of Earth's land surface. The authors called this the basis for a "silver bullet" strategy.
Worked example: how concentrated is a hotspot?
The numbers look impressive, but what do they mean? Compare each share of species with the share of land.
If plant species were spread evenly, 1.4% of the land would hold about 1.4% of them.
Instead it holds up to 44%. Divide: 44 / 1.4 = about 31.
So, by area, hotspots hold roughly 31 times their even share of the world's plant species.
For the four vertebrate groups: 35 / 1.4 = 25 times the even share.
This ratio is the whole argument. Money spent protecting a hectare in a hotspot covers far more endemic species than the same money spent on an average hectare.
A practice question in the same style: if a set of regions covers 2% of land and holds 30% of a group's endemic species, the concentration is 30 / 2 = 15 times the even share.
What does NCERT say about hotspots?
The current NCERT Class 12 Biology chapter 13, Biodiversity and Conservation (2026-27 reprint), introduces hotspots under in situ conservation. It describes them as regions with very high species richness and a high degree of endemism, meaning species confined to that region.
Points to learn from the chapter:
Initially 25 hotspots were identified; nine more were added later, for a total of 34.
The hotspots are also regions of accelerated habitat loss.
Three hotspots cover India's richest regions: the Western Ghats and Sri Lanka, Indo-Burma, and the Himalaya.
All hotspots together cover less than 2% of Earth's land area.
NCERT says strict protection of hotspots could reduce ongoing mass extinctions by almost 30%.
Notice how the textbook's "25 at first" and "less than 2%" match the 2000 paper's 25 hotspots on 1.4% of land. Use NCERT's figures in your exam, and check the current edition, since counts like these get revised.
What mistakes do students make with hotspots?
Defining a hotspot as "a place with many species." Leave out endemism or habitat loss and you lose the mark.
Confusing endemic with endangered. Endemic means found only there; endangered means at high risk of extinction.
Calling hotspots ex situ conservation. They are protected where the species live, so they are in situ.
Listing the wrong Indian hotspots. Learn the three NCERT names exactly as written.
For the rest of the chapter, read our guide to biodiversity and conservation for NEET, and for the scientist who popularised the word biodiversity, see our post on E. O. Wilson.
What can a student learn from how Myers worked?
Turn a vague worry into a precise question. "Species are disappearing" became "where does each rupee save the most species?"
Use ratios, not just totals. The hotspot case rests on comparing a share of species with a share of land.
Keep refining. He published the idea in 1988, expanded it in 1990, and tested it with a larger team in 2000.
When terms like endemism and in situ conservation start to blur, the Fermi Concept Library covers every concept in biology with its own lesson.
Write the hotspot definition in one sentence that includes both endemism and habitat loss, then name India's three hotspots from memory.
