The geographical regions that are particularly rich in endemic, rare and threatened species, found relatively in small areas and facing significant habitat loss, are referred to as:
- (a)Red spots
- (b)Glow spots
- (c)Hot spots
- (d)Wet spots
Correct — C, Hot spots.
The stem is a definition, and it is the standard one. A region crowded with species found nowhere else, holding them in a limited area, and already stripped of much of its original vegetation, is what conservation biology calls a hot spot.
Two thresholds do the grading. A region must hold at least 1,500 species of vascular plants found nowhere else, and must already have lost at least 70 per cent of its original natural vegetation, leaving 30 per cent or less intact.
Carry away the unusual logic of the label: a hotspot qualifies on irreplaceability plus damage already suffered, not on richness alone. It is a triage list for conservation priority, not a roll of pristine places.
That is why the phrases in the stem line up so exactly — endemic species, small extent, and significant habitat loss are the three things the definition weighs together.
- (a)Red spots — Red in conservation names an assessed extinction risk. The IUCN Red List and the Red Data Books sort species into categories such as Vulnerable, Endangered and Critically Endangered, and the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, launched in 2014, carries the same vocabulary to ecosystems.
Either way, what a red assessment records is a grade of risk. The stem instead describes a region by endemism, limited extent and heavy habitat loss, and asks for the name given to regions so described.
The word 'threatened' in the stem belongs to that red vocabulary. But there it grades a species; here it describes the ground those species stand on.
- (b)Glow spots — Glow in biology belongs to bioluminescence — light produced by living tissue, as in fireflies, glow-worms and many marine organisms.
That is a trait of individual organisms and a matter of physiology. The stem is asking for the label given to a whole geographical region on the strength of what lives there and how much of its habitat has gone.
- (d)Wet spots — Water appears nowhere among the stem's tests, which turn on endemic, rare and threatened species in a limited area under significant habitat loss.
Wetness has its own conservation designation: wetlands listed under the Ramsar Convention, entered on wetland criteria — representative wetland types and waterbird and fish populations among them.
The two can overlap on a map, since a hotspot may well contain listed wetlands. They are still graded on different evidence, so one label does not substitute for the other.
A biodiversity hotspot is a region singled out for conservation priority because it holds species found nowhere else, concentrated in a limited area, and has already lost much of the natural vegetation that once covered it.
Two thresholds define it: at least 1,500 species of vascular plants found nowhere else, and at least 70 per cent of the original natural vegetation gone.
The logic is triage. Irreplaceability by itself does not qualify a region and destruction by itself does not either — the label marks the places where the unique and the endangered coincide.
Hotspots are the working vocabulary of global conservation prioritisation, and they sit beside neighbouring labels that grade different things: species on the IUCN Red List, wetlands under the Ramsar Convention, countries in the megadiverse grouping.
The status is used to steer money and effort — the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund invests in these regions rather than spreading support evenly across the map.
For Uttarakhand the idea is local rather than abstract. The state lies inside the Himalaya hotspot, one of the four that extend into India.
- Conservation International sets two hotspot thresholds: at least 1,500 vascular plant species found nowhere else, and at least 70 per cent of original natural vegetation lost.
- Meeting the vegetation threshold leaves 30 per cent or less of the original natural vegetation intact.
- Thirty-six regions currently hold hotspot status; their combined extent is put at roughly 2.4 to 2.5 per cent of Earth's land surface, depending on the source.
- The hotspot idea was introduced by the British ecologist Norman Myers and later developed with Conservation International into the present thresholds.
- Four hotspots extend into India: the Himalaya, Indo-Burma, the Western Ghats and Sri Lanka, and Sundaland.
- Uttarakhand lies within the Himalaya hotspot.
- Sundaland reaches Indian territory in the Nicobar Islands, well away from the Himalayan portion.
- In geology the same word names a volcanic hotspot fed by a mantle plume, as at Hawaii — a separate sense from the biological one.
Two thresholds are weighed together — irreplaceable species and vegetation already lost.
- The habitat-loss threshold runs opposite to intuition: a hotspot must have lost at least 70 per cent of its original vegetation, not retained 70 per cent.
- The stem asks for a category, not a place. Supplying the name of a hotspot such as Himalaya or Western Ghats answers a question that was not put.
- 'Threatened' in the stem describes species inside a region, while the IUCN Red List grades species themselves — keep the two levels apart.
- Hotspot also names a volcanic centre over a mantle plume in geology; the stem's wording about endemic species and habitat loss fixes the biological sense.
- A hotspot is a region that may straddle national borders, whereas a megadiverse country is a country-level label — India figures in both discussions on different grounds.
- Hotspot status carries no legal protection in itself; it is a prioritisation label, distinct from notification as a national park or sanctuary.
This item puts the definition in the stem and makes the label the answer. Prepare for the mirror of it as well: the label supplied, and its criteria turned into statements to be judged true or false.
Worth preparing beside that is placement — which hotspots reach India, and which one a named state falls inside.
And keep the neighbouring labels apart in your notes — hotspot, IUCN Red List entry, Ramsar site, megadiverse country — because the deciding step is which level a term applies to: a species, a wetland, a country or a region.
UPSC_2025_GS1_Q372025Same subject seen from the species side: the Gooty tarantula item turns on a creature whose Indian habitat is confined to particular forest areas — narrow-range endemism under threat, which is what a hotspot is made of. The difference is level. That item tests the natural history of one such species; this one asks for the label given to a region full of them.
UPSC_2016_GS1_Q532016Also a restricted-range Indian species — Red Sanders, a tree of a part of South India, under pressure from illegal extraction. The shared thread is a narrow distribution that cannot be replaced elsewhere. What differs is the hinge: that item turns on the forest type the tree actually grows in, while this one turns on how such regions are classified.
UPSC_1999_GS1_Q541999Shares the habitat-loss theme and touches the same ground, since its stem names the forest divisions of Dehradun, Bijnor and Nainital. The difference matters: the Asian elephant ranges widely across evergreen, thorn, swamp and grassland habitats, so it illustrates shrinking habitat rather than the small-area endemism that the hotspot definition rests on.
RPSC_2023_MAINS_PaperII_Q362023Pairs the same two ideas — endangered species and the causes of wildlife loss — but as a descriptive Mains answer on the southern Aravalli in Rajasthan. Same drivers of loss; the difference is that it asks about a named region's species, whereas this item asks for the term by which such regions are classified.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following is a threshold a region must meet to be classified as a biodiversity hotspot?
- (a)It must retain at least 70 per cent of its original natural vegetation
- (b)It must contain at least 1,500 endemic species of vascular plants
- (c)It must lie wholly within the tropics
- (d)It must have been notified as a protected area by a national government
Answerb — the vascular-plant endemism threshold is one of the two published criteria, alongside the loss of at least 70 per cent of the original natural vegetation.(a) inverts that second criterion: qualifying means the vegetation has largely gone, leaving 30 per cent or less intact, not that 70 per cent survives.
(c) fails because hotspots include temperate regions such as the Mediterranean Basin, the Cape Floristic Region and the California Floristic Province.
(d) fails because hotspot status is a conservation-priority designation, not a legal notification made under a national protected-area law.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Uttarakhand falls within which one of the following biodiversity hotspots?
- (a)Indo-Burma
- (b)Sundaland
- (c)Himalaya
- (d)Western Ghats and Sri Lanka
Answerc — Uttarakhand's mountain and foothill belt lies within the Himalaya hotspot, which runs along the Himalayan arc.(a) Indo-Burma stretches across parts of north-east India and mainland South-East Asia, far to the east of Uttarakhand.
(b) Sundaland reaches Indian territory in the Nicobar Islands, in the Bay of Bengal.
(d) The Western Ghats and Sri Lanka hotspot covers the ranges of the peninsular west coast together with Sri Lanka.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The concept of 'biodiversity hotspots' as a device for setting conservation priorities is credited to:
- (a)Rachel Carson
- (b)Norman Myers
- (c)Alexander von Humboldt
- (d)Charles Elton
Answerb — the British ecologist Norman Myers introduced the hotspot idea, which was later developed with Conservation International into the thresholds used today.(a) Rachel Carson is associated with Silent Spring and the case against indiscriminate pesticide use.
(c) Alexander von Humboldt is associated with plant geography and the altitudinal zonation of vegetation on mountains.
(d) Charles Elton is associated with animal ecology — food chains, the ecological niche, and the study of biological invasions.
- practice — not a real PYQ
With reference to biodiversity hotspots, consider the following statements: I. A region qualifies partly on the strength of how much of its original natural vegetation it has already lost. II. Areas in India fall within more than one biodiversity hotspot. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a)I only
- (b)II only
- (c)Both I and II
- (d)Neither I nor II
Answerc — both statements hold, so neither single-statement option and not the rejection option can stand.Statement I is one of the two criteria: at least 70 per cent of the original natural vegetation must already have been lost, which is why past damage forms part of qualifying.
Statement II holds because four hotspots extend into India — the Himalaya, Indo-Burma, the Western Ghats and Sri Lanka, and Sundaland.
Options (a) and (b) each drop a true statement, and (d) rejects both.