Biodiversity of the Albertine Rift

The Virunga Mountains (Maryke Gray, via http://www.iucn.org/)

Biogeography (main)

Published: June 15, 2014, 7:40 pm

Topics:

Biogeography (main) Conservation Biology (main) Biodiversity (main) Species (main)

Biodiversity of the Albertine Rift is driven chiefly by climate and topography of the Albertine Rift Mountains ecoregion, an area of exceptional faunal and moderate floral endemism. These mountains also support the Mountain gorilla (Gorilla gorilla beringei), which is one of the most charismatic flagship species in Africa, and an effective target for much of the current conservation investment in the area. The mountain chain comprising the Albertine rift straddles the borders of five different nations, and this makes effective ecoregional conservation a challenge in the area. Although there are a number of National Parks and Forest Reserves in the area, the recent wars have made their management difficult over much of the ecoregion. Additional threats include conversion of most forest areas outside reserves into farmland, together with logging, firewood collection, and bushmeat hunting within the remaining forest areas.

Breakdown by principal biotic groups

Based on what is known at present there are, in the Albertine Rift:

Species Type	Number of such speciesreported in the Albertine rift	# of species as a% of that type known to be present on the African continent	Number of species that are classifiedas Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable	Number of endemic Species
Mammals	402	39%	35	34
Birds	1,061	52%	25	41
Reptiles	175	14%	2	16
Amphibians	118	19%	16	34
Fish	400	-	-
Plants	5,800	14%	40

Source: Wildlife Conservation Society

See also

• Albertine RiftCollection

Citation

Fund, W. (2014). Biodiversity of the Albertine Rift. Retrieved from http://editors.eol.org/eoearth/wiki/Biodiversity_of_the_Albertine_Rift