Endemism and Conservation of Hemiptera on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau is essential for the maintenance of global biodiversity. Exploring the drivers of species diversity and the conservation status of species in this region contributes significantly to elucidating the mechanisms underlying diversity patterns and optimizing conservation strategies. Understanding endemism is key to developing effective conservation strategies; yet, it has not been fully investigated in insects on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. To address this gap, we compiled a species distribution dataset for Hemiptera and analyzed the relationships between weighted endemism (WE) patterns and six categories of environmental variables using statistical models. We also identified endemism hotspots based on the top 10% grids with the highest WE values and overlapped them with protected areas to investigate the effectiveness of conservation. Our results revealed that endemism patterns on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau are heterogeneously distributed and are mostly determined by historical climate change. Furthermore, we identified three endemism hotspots located in the eastern, southeastern, and southwestern fringes of the plateau and defined them as high-priority conservation areas. We revealed that the first two of them are inadequately safeguarded by protected areas, thereby showing a low level of conservation performance for endemism. Based on our findings, we recommend incorporating endemism into research efforts to elucidate the mechanisms shaping species diversity patterns on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, as it provides important historical information on the processes driving these patterns. Moreover, it is necessary to optimize the current protected area network via the expansion of existing protected areas or the establishment of new protected areas.