Resumen

PORTELLI, Sabrina Noelia  y  DIAZ GOMEZ, Juan Manuel. Determinación de áreas prioritarias de conservación en la Puna y Prepuna del norte argentino. Rev. Mus. Argent. Cienc. Nat. [online]. 2017, vol.19, n.1, pp.9-17. ISSN 1853-0400.

There exists a great concern about the loss of biodiversity as a result of destruction and modification of natural habitats caused by human activities. One of the most common solutions to this problem is to establish protected area networks to conserve as many habitats as possible. The objective of this work was to determine areas of endemism and specific richness for 16 species of fish, 11 of amphibians, 24 of reptiles, and 46 species of plants in the Puna and Prepuna region of Northwestern Argentina. Areas of endemism were identified using the endemicity criterion implemented in the software NDM, and DIVA-GIS was used for richness estimation. Five congruent areas were identified by the two analyses, four of them coincide with areas that already have conservation policies, while one does not coincide with any protected area. In the future this area could be considered in new conservation programs. This approach constitutes a novel contribution to a systematic planning of Priority Areas, which together with other contributions (ecological, geographic, and phylogenetic) constitute an effective and useful tool for decision-making agencies in conservation policies.

Palabras clave : Endemism; Species richness; Protected areas; Northwestern Argentina.