Hotspots of endemic terrestrial invertebrates in southern Greece

In the present paper we identify biodiversity hotspots of endemic terrestri al invertebrates in southern Greece, using four different criteria and five taxonomic groups. The hotspots identification procedure was facilitated by the use of the MapInfoPro G.I.S. software. We mapped the known distributio n of 424 endemic species on a digital map of southern Greece in 548 10 x 10 km(2) grids. The total number of registrations (records per grid) is 3826 in 465 grids. Registrations are unevenly distributed in the five sub-region s of the study area, a fact that results from both the unequal collecting e ffort applied in each sub-region and their different levels of endemism. We first identified the hotspots for each individual taxonomic group, and the n for the total species pool. Finally, we analyzed the species saturation p attern in order to find the minimum number of grids needed for the inclusio n of 85% of the total number of species. The most important hotspots are mo stly at the higher mountains of the study area, especially on Taygetos and Idi Mts. We also give a brief evaluation of the performance of the four cri teria used in the case of endemic species analyses.