Biodiversity gap analysis of the protected area system of the Indo-Burma Hotspot and priorities for increasing biodiversity representation Naruemon Tantipisanuh a, ⁎, Tommaso Savini a , Peter Cutter b , George A. Gale a a Conservation Ecology Program, School of Bioresources and Technology, King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi, 49 Soi.Thian-thale 25, Bangkhuntien-Chaithaley Road, Tha Kham, Bangkhuntien, Bangkok 10150, Thailand b Spatial Informatics Group, SM Tower, 24th Floor, 979/69 PaholyothinRoad, SamsenNai, Phayathai, Bangkok 10400, Thailand abstract article info Article history: Received 17 May 2015 Received in revised form 14 December 2015 Accepted 30 December 2015 Available online xxxx Historically, designation of protected areas was biased toward specific habitats, resulting in insufficient rep- resentation of other habitats and their associated species. We identified gaps in current protected areas of the Indo-Burma Hotspot, proposed additional areas that could be included in PA systems of this hotspot to increase overall representation, and identified high priority areas for inclusion. Land cover types and threatened terrestrial vertebrate species were used as surrogates of biodiversity, and their representations were assessed using a gap analysis. Areas to be added to improve the hotspot's protected area systems were identified using Marxan software. High priority areas were selected based on irreplaceability and vulnera- bility. The representation of biodiversity in this hotspot is currently skewed in terms of habitats and species. There is a bias toward mammals in terms of representation (75%), while amphibians are not well represent- ed (27%). With our optimal scenario, 21% of the hotspot's entire land area would need to be included in protected area systems, compared to 16% currently, to achieve more complete representation targets. Myanmar had the most additional areas required. Two-thirds of the additional areas needed to represent conservation features were b 10 km 2 . Several suggested areas were located along borders between multiple countries. Representation within protected areas in the Indo-Burma Hotspot can be significantly improved by focusing on maintaining and restoring linkages between smaller patches to create and sustain larger protected area networks. As part of this enhancement, trans-boundary collaboration among countries with- in the hotspot will be particularly important. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Gap analysis Marxan Protected area management Representation Threatened species 1. Introduction The use of officially designated protected areas as a tool to manage biodiversity has been applied worldwide because of its ability to reduce threats to wildlife within their boundaries (Andam et al., 2008; McKinney, 2002). Ideally, when designing a protected area system, several principles should be applied including representation, comple- mentarity, adequacy, efficiency and spatial compactness (Margules and Pressey, 2000). However, in practice, the design of protected areas has often been significantly influenced by political factors and usually biased toward specific areas with low economic value or limited devel- opment potential (Joppa and Pfaff, 2009). With limited consideration for their benefit to biodiversity or other conservation principles, many areas of high biodiversity significance (e.g. lowland evergreen forest, mangrove forest) remain largely unprotected (Margules and Pressey, 2000; Pressey et al., 1993). An assessment of the status of global protected areas in 2004 indicat- ed that total terrestrial protected areas approached 12% (Brooks et al., 2004). However, coverage varied substantially among bioregions from, for example, only 5% of temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands protected to 25% of temperate coniferous forests protected (Brooks et al., 2004). Moreover, the extent of occurrence of more than 12% of 11,633 species including terrestrial mammals, globally threat- ened birds, freshwater turtles and tortoises, and amphibians did not in- tersect with any protected area (Rodrigues et al., 2004). More recent studies indicate that in the tropics the percentage coverage and geogra- phy of protected areas within different tropical bioregions are notably different. The coverage varies from between 5 and 10% for dry broadleaf forests and coniferous forests to more than 20% for moist broadleaf for- ests (Jenkins and Joppa, 2009). While protected areas and surrounding areas of some regions in the tropics are generally large (e.g. the Amazon and Congo) and retain high levels of forest cover, the protected areas in other regions (e.g. the Atlantic Coast forest and West Africa) are small and show sharp reductions in forest cover at their boundaries (Joppa et al., 2008). The Indo-Burma Hotspot defined by Mittermeier et al. (1999) is a biodiversity hotspot where large concentrations of endemic species Biological Conservation 195 (2016) 203–213 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: ttpisanu@gmail.com (N. Tantipisanuh), tommasosavini@gmail.com (T. Savini), pcutter@sig-gis.com (P. Cutter), ggkk1990@gmail.com (G.A. Gale). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2015.12.043 0006-3207/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Biological Conservation journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/bioc