Synonyms
Indigenous species; Native species
Definition
Endemic species are those that are unique or restricted to a particular locality or geographical area and cannot be found elsewhere.
The geographical location where endemic species are found can vary in scale, including small habitat patches or a defined zone, an island, or nation. Estuaries represent the confluence of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems creating large environmental variation and fluctuations, which shape local adaptations and differentiation of taxa resulting in endemic species (Greenberg, 2012). Factors that influence differentiation and endemism include (1) abiotic stressors that provide opportunities for specialized functions, (2) degree of isolation from habitats (current and in the past), and (3) local changes in the habitat over time. Estuarine endemic species run a higher risk of extinction because of their restricted area and pressure from human alterations that include coastal development and...
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Bibliography
Greenberg, R., 2012. The ecology of estuarine wildlife. In Day, J. W., Crump, B. C., Kemp, W. M., and Yanez-Arancibia, A. (eds.), Estuarine Ecology, 2nd edn. New York: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 357–380.
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© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Thorne, K. (2016). Endemic Species. In: Kennish, M.J. (eds) Encyclopedia of Estuaries. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8801-4_209
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8801-4_209
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