干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

The puna desert of the high Andes of South America is the second most extensive high altitude desert in the world, after the high altitude desert of SE Central Asia. Compared with the latter, which apparently holds only three species of true desert birds (sensu Cowan, 1996), From a larger list of fourteen desert species for the Caspio-Central Asian desert as a whole, the puna desert is richer in desert birds, having twenty species. The reasons for the higher bird species richness of the puna desert, compared to the lower species richness of the high altitude deserts of Central Asia, may include both (1) spurious differences in species numbers due to differences in the definitions of ’desert species’, and (2) ’true’ biological differences due to the different biogeographical histories of these two regions.