The research, conducted by Carlos E. Gonzalez-Orozco of the Colombian Agricultural Research Corporation AGROSAVIA, tackles a deceptively simple question: where are the areas of highest biodiversity, and how can biodiversity, biogeography, and agricultural information be combined to prioritize conservation? To answer it, the study focused on six strategic páramo complexes in the Central and Eastern Cordilleras of Colombia: Santurbán-Berlín, Almorzadero, Guantiva-La Rusia, Cruz Verde-Sumapaz, Los Nevados, and Sonsón. Around each páramo, the author drew a five-kilometer buffer zone representing the transition area where farmland meets high-elevation wilderness, and it is precisely in these transition zones that the analysis found the heaviest anthropogenic pressure.

The scale of agricultural encroachment documented in the study is striking. Reported rates of land-use change have reached up to 18.3 percent in the Eastern Cordillera and 8.7 percent in the Central Cordillera. In Santurbán, cultivated land expanded by 10.5 percent between 2000 and 2021, while in Rabanal-Guerrero it increased by 32 percent between 1984 and 2021. These figures capture only the slow, persistent creep of the agricultural frontier; they do not include the compounding effects of intensive grazing, burning, population growth, and climate change, all of which are degrading both the core páramo areas and their surrounding buffers. For an ecosystem that stores water and supports unique evolutionary lineages, such losses are effectively irreversible on human timescales.

What makes the new study methodologically interesting is its integration of multiple, normally separate, strands of spatial analysis. The author compiled 23,938 georeferenced records of native páramo flora representing 2,462 species, of which 8,742 records covering 1,124 species fell within páramo boundaries, plus 1,656 records of 37 Espeletia species restricted to páramo ecosystems. Using the software Biodiverse at a grid resolution of roughly five kilometers, the study mapped species richness, endemism, and a suite of phylogenetic metrics: Phylogenetic Diversity, Phylogenetic Endemism, Relative Phylogenetic Diversity, and Relative Phylogenetic Endemism. A technique called CANAPE, the Categorical Analysis of Neo- and Paleo-Endemism, was then used to distinguish areas where recently evolved species concentrate from those harboring ancient evolutionary relicts, with statistical significance assessed through randomization tests of 999 iterations.

The results reveal a fascinating spatial decoupling that has major implications for conservation strategy. The main centers of species richness do not coincide with the main centers of endemism. Los Nevados, in the Central Cordillera, contains large areas of high species richness but comparatively low endemism, while Santurbán shows the highest concentrations of endemic species without matching levels of richness. For the frailejones themselves, the richest zone lies in southern Guantiva-La Rusia, with outstanding endemism in Guantiva-La Rusia and Santurbán-Berlín, particularly at the lower elevation limits near the buffer zones. The families Orchidaceae, Asteraceae, Melastomataceae, Poaceae, and Solanaceae dominate the flora of both páramos and buffers. In other words, protecting the most species-rich places alone would leave much of Colombia’s unique evolutionary history unprotected.

The phylogenetic analyses add a deeper temporal dimension to this picture. Significantly low Relative Phylogenetic Diversity values, indicating concentrations of short branches and thus recent, rapid diversification, occurred in the buffer zones of Santurbán-Berlín, Sonsón, and Los Nevados, while high values reflecting long evolutionary branches were found in Los Nevados, Santurbán-Berlín-Almorzadero, Guantiva-La Rusia, and Cruz Verde-Sumapaz. The CANAPE analysis identified buffer zones as containing most of the mixed endemism sites, scattered paleoendemism in Cruz Verde-Sumapaz and Santurbán-Berlín, and a distinct center of Espeletia neoendemism in Guantiva-La Rusia. A biogeographic regionalization based on species turnover among 50 Espeletia species across Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador identified six distinct regions, with the Eastern Cordillera showing the highest turnover and the páramos splitting into a larger Eastern Cordillera group and a smaller Central Cordillera group. Notably, Los Nevados clustered floristically with the central Eastern Cordillera despite its geographic separation.

Geodiversity, the variety of abiotic features such as soils, geomorphology, hydrology, and climate, emerged as a powerful complementary lens. Nine environmental variables were combined into an integrated geodiversity layer, and statistical comparisons using one-way ANOVA and Tukey post hoc tests showed that maximum geodiversity values differ significantly among all six páramos. Two clear groups emerged: Santurbán-Berlín, Almorzadero, and Guantiva-La Rusia in the Eastern Cordillera showed high to medium geodiversity, while Los Nevados and Sonsón in the Central Cordillera showed medium to low values. Although geodiversity alone does not predict species richness, areas of high geodiversity tended to coincide with elevated species and phylogenetic endemism, reinforcing its value as an indicator of irreplaceable evolutionary heritage.

On the agricultural side, the study used principal component analysis of WorldClim climate variables to delineate agroclimatic zones, finding that solar radiation explained more than 90 percent of the variation, followed by precipitation and relative humidity. Santurbán-Berlín and Los Nevados contain the highest number of agroclimatic zones, six each. Data from Colombia’s Rural Agricultural Planning Unit, UPRA, were then used to track agricultural frontier expansion for 2018, 2021, and 2024, alongside livestock production units from the 2018 National Agricultural Census. The analysis showed that expansion between 2018 and 2024 is most critical in the buffer zones, especially east and south of Guantiva-La Rusia, while within the páramos the frontier has advanced furthest into southern Santurbán-Berlín and northern Cruz Verde-Sumapaz. Crucially, the areas climatically suitable for agriculture often overlap with zones of high biodiversity, creating the spatial conflicts that make páramo conservation so contentious.

Bringing all these layers together, the study produces a clear regional ranking. Santurbán-Berlín emerges as the very highest priority because of its concentration of endemic species and unique evolutionary diversity, especially in its buffer zones. Guantiva-La Rusia follows, exposed to a large and extensive agricultural frontier pressing against its boundaries, and Almorzadero ranks third, facing greater agricultural pressure inside its protected areas. Los Nevados, despite holding the highest species richness, faces comparatively low frontier pressure, while Cruz Verde-Sumapaz presents a paradox: high agricultural risk but mid-range biodiversity values, with relevant phylogenetic endemism concentrated in its northern extreme. At the territorial scale, the study identifies 46 municipalities and 185 rural sites, or veredas, where future conservation interventions could be targeted, with Santurbán-Berlín and Guantiva-La Rusia containing the largest numbers of priority municipalities. Eleven of the prioritized municipalities also fall within PDET and ZOMAC designations, Colombia’s post-conflict development and conflict-affected zones, revealing a troubling disconnect between ecological vulnerability and the territories targeted for rural development investment.

The author is careful to frame the work as a decision-support framework rather than a prescriptive blueprint. The maps are visual representations of underlying models, subject to uneven sampling effort, equal weighting assumptions, and the limitations of one-kilometer climate data, and the study explicitly does not analyze the economic, cultural, or governance drivers of land-use change. Because many páramos lie near Indigenous territories, the study notes that any application of its results should proceed through participatory, rights-based processes consistent with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Still, the core message is unambiguous and urgent: the transition zones where farms meet sky islands are where biodiversity loss is happening fastest, and the Eastern Cordillera complexes of Santurbán-Berlín, Almorzadero, and Guantiva-La Rusia, where evolutionary uniqueness and agricultural pressure converge, deserve to be at the very top of Colombia’s conservation agenda. As climate change pushes both crops and endemic plants ever higher up the mountains, the window for proactive protection of these water towers of the Andes is narrowing fast.

Subject of Research: Integrating biodiversity, biogeography, and agricultural land-use data to prioritize conservation of six strategic páramo complexes in the Colombian Andes

Article Title: Integrating biodiversity, biogeography, and agricultural data to prioritize conservation: a case study of six strategic páramo complexes in Colombia

Article References: Gonzalez-Orozco, C. E. (2026). Integrating biodiversity, biogeography, and agricultural data to prioritize conservation: a case study of six strategic páramo complexes in Colombia. Discover Conservation, 3(1), Article 7. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44353-026-00077-z

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44353-026-00077-z

Keywords: páramos, Colombia, biodiversity conservation, endemism, Espeletia, agricultural expansion, phylogenetic diversity, biogeography, geodiversity, Andes, conservation prioritization, sky islands