New Free Software Helps Identify Key Areas for Environmental
Protection A new open-system software package for the analysis
of geographic distribution of animals and plants was launched
this week by Conservation International (CI) in Brazil. This
technology was designed to help the scientific community
identify priority areas for environmental conservation based on
geographical patterns of species. Croizat uses a
panbiogeographic approach, one of the main areas of research of
biogeography, which is the study of the distribution of living
creatures on our planet. The panbiogeographic method was created
by the Franco-Italian botanist Leon Croizat (1894-1982). The
idea behind panbiogeography is that biotas, or the total of
animals and plants in a particular area, evolve through
geography barriers. “The panbiogeographic method in which this
software is based views patterns of distribution of species as a
fundamental aspect of biodiversity,” said Croizat’s main
developer, Mauro Cavalcanti, adding that the identifi