India also figures prominently in the list of the biodiversity hotspots of the world. A "biodiversity hotspot" is a biogeographical region with significant levels of biodiversity that is threatened by human habitation. This concept was developed by the British environmental expert Norman Myers in 1998 and subsequent years, and finalised in a paper published in Nature in 2000. A total of 25 hotspots were identified at first in which are found as many as 44% of all species of vascular plants and 35% of all species in four vertebrate in just 1.4% of the land surface of the Earth. An additional 10 hotspots were added subsequently.
