fig. 2.10 > In its Sixth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change identified 43 marine hotspots of biodiversity and species diversity. These are marine regions with particularly high species richness, including particularly rare species or organisms that only occur in these particular areas.

fig. 2.11 > Selected marine biodiversity hotspots. Top (from left to right): the seagrass meadows in the Northeast Atlantic, the Agulhas upwelling area off the coast of South Africa, the coastal areas of the Antarctic Peninsula; Middle (from left to right): the Humboldt Current with its fur seal colonies off the coast of Chile, Chesapeake Bay on the coast of the US state of Maryland, a coral reef in Indonesia; Bottom (from left to right): another Indonesian coral reef, the kelp forests off the coast of Norway and the reef communities in the waters of the Philippines.