Central Chile is an important biodiversity hotspot in Latin America. Biodiversity hotspots are characterised by a high number of endemic species cooccurring with a high level of anthropogenic pressure. In central Chile, the pressure is caused by land-use change, in which near-natural primary and secondary forests are replaced and fragmented by commercial pine and eucalyptus plantations. Large forest fires are another factor that can potentially endanger biodiversity. Usually, environmental hazards, such as wildfires, are part of the regular environmental dynamic and not considered a threat to biodiversity. Nonetheless, this situation may change if land-use change and altered wildfire regimes coerce. Land-use change pressure may destroy landscape integrity in terms of habitat loss and fragmentation, while wildfires may destroy the last remnants of native forests. This study aims to understand the joint effects of land-use change and a catastrophic wildfire on habitat loss and habitat fragmentation of local plant species richness hotspots in central Chile. To achieve this, we apply a combination of ecological fieldwork, remote sensing, and geoprocessing to estimate the spread and spatial patterns of biodiverse habitats under current and past land-use conditions and how these habitats were altered by land-use change and by a single large wildfire event. We show that land-use change has exceeded the wildfire’s impacts on diverse habitats. Despite the fact that the impact of the wildfire was comparably small here, wildfire may coerce with land-use change regarding pressure on biodiversity hotspots. Our findings can be used to develop restoration concepts, targeting on an increase of habitat diversity within currently fire-cleared areas and evaluate their benefits for plant species richness conservation.

智利中部是拉丁美洲重要的生物多样性热点。生物多样性热点的特点是同时存在大量特有物种和高水平的人为压力。在智利中部，压力是由土地利用变化引起的，在这种变化中，近乎自然的原始森林和次要森林被商业性的松树和桉树人工林所取代和破碎化。森林大火是可能危害生物多样性的另一个因素。通常，诸如野火之类的环境危害是常规环境动态的一部分，不被视为对生物多样性的威胁。但是，如果改变土地用途和改变野火制度，这种情况可能会改变。土地利用变化的压力可能会破坏栖息地的丧失和破碎化，从而破坏景观的完整性，而野火可能会破坏原始森林的最后残留物。这项研究旨在了解智利中部土地利用变化和灾难性野火对栖息地丧失和局部植物物种丰富度热点地区栖息地破碎化的共同影响。为了实现这一目标，我们将生态野外工作，遥感和地理处理相结合，以估算当前和过去土地利用条件下生物多样性栖息地的分布和空间格局，以及这些土地利用方式的变化和单个土地对这些栖息地的影响。大型野火事件。我们表明，土地利用变化已超过野火对各种生境的影响。尽管在这里野火的影响相对较小，但野火可能会在生物多样性热点压力方面与土地利用变化产生胁迫。