Abstract
The analysis of spatial pattern of biodiversity hotspots is an effective approach for deliberation of conservation strategy of biodiversity. On Tanzawa Mountains faced crisis of biodiversity, such as beech forests declines and overabundance of sika deer, we examined spatial patterns of hotspots and discussed an effective strategy for conservation of biodiversity. We extracted four kinds of hotspots from two aspects, distribution of flora (richness, rarity, and endemism hotspots) and habitat change (habitat hotspots), using flora database collected by systematic sampling and landuse data in 1976 and 1997. We analyzed the spatial autocorrelation using the Moran's I and the overlaps among the hotspots area. In addition, we conducted the Gap analysis between the hotspots and special protection area of quasi-national park. In the results, there are no spatial autocorrelations and spatial patterns on the distribution of all hotspots and these indicated that both high and low biodiversity area is scattered in Tanzawa Mountains. Only 12.3% of the flora hotspots are common to the three kinds of flora hotspots (richness, rarity, and endemism hotspots). These suggested that we should evaluate the hotspots of biodiversity using the different aspects. Moreover, as the results of gap analysis, we found that high biodiversity area (richness, rarity, and endemism hotspots) is distributed in both the inside and the outside of the special protection area of quasi-national park. The special protection area is effective for conservation of biodiversity, but it is insufficient only in the present area. We concluded, for conservation of flora diversity, that the need to use multiple indices of biodiversity in identifying areas of high conservation priority.
