Many of the species endemic to tepui summits have nowhere to go if conditions on the summit change beyond their tolerance range.

They cannot descend the cliffs into the lowlands — they are adapted to summit conditions and would not survive in lowland conditions.

If the summit becomes too warm, or if the cloud cover that moderates temperatures and provides moisture becomes less reliable, the species that depend on those conditions face the prospect of disappearing from the only places they exist.

This is the conservation significance of Roraima’s biology in its starkest form.

The endemism that makes the tepui summits scientifically extraordinary also makes the organisms that live there acutely vulnerable to any change in the conditions that made their evolution possible.