Species richness and percent endemism are normally considered the most important information for determining future conservation strategies in a given area or country. To propose conservation centers for taxonomic groups at a large, continental scale (i.e. America), there exist three main difficulties: 1. Most of the information is only available at regional scales (provinces or countries), with the exception of "Flora Mesoamericana". In other cases it is unknown if a rare species in one country is common in another one. 2. Different taxonomic concepts and the lack of nomenclatural and systematic revisions cause confusion. As a consequence the same species may possess different names in different countries. 3. Regional floras and inventories often do not provide information on the abundance, the risk of extinction, and the conservation status of the species. For this reason, we constructed a database, built as a specific application in MS-Access, which contains up-to-date information on the systematics and biogeography of ca. 3,000 pteridophyte species of Latin America. We have combined information from multiple regions following a single taxonomic/nomenclatural system. Centers of distribution for each family and genus and the floristic composition of each country can be visualized graphically. Examples for Centers of Biodiversity are México (Adiantaceae, Aspleniaceae), Costa Rica (Dryopteridaceae, Lomariopsidaceae, Thelypteridaceae, Woodsiaceae), Venezuela (Hymenophyllaceae), and Argentina (Isoëtaceae). We propose that these countries be classified as “Conservation Centers” for these families.

Key words: biodiversity, conservation, database, Latin America, pteridophytes