Resumo:
The Brazilian Ministry of the Environment (Ministe´ rio Do Meio Ambiente, MMA) proposed
defining priority areas for Brazilian biodiversity conservation in 2007, but to date, no definitions of priority
areas for amphibian conservation have been developed for the Caatinga biome or the semiarid region of
Brazil. In this study, we searched for ‘‘hot spots’’ of amphibians in these two regions and assessed whether the
priority areas established by the MMA coincided with those suitable for amphibian conservation. We
determined amphibian hot spots by means of three estimates: areas of endemism, areas of high species
richness, and areas with species that are threatened, rare, or have very limited distributions. We then assessed
the degree of coincidence between amphibian hot spots and the priority areas of the MMA based on the
current conservation units. We analyzed areas of endemism with the use of a parsimony analysis of
endemicity (PAE) on quadrats. The Caatinga biome and semiarid region showed four and six areas of
endemism, respectively, mainly associated with mountainous areas that are covered by isolated forests and
positively correlated with species richness. All areas of endemism coincided with one or more priority areas
defined by the MMA. We identify 15 priority areas for amphibian conservation in the Caatinga biome and
semiarid region, including the creation of new full-protection conservation units.
