Multiple drivers of decline in the global status of freshwater crayfish (Decapoda: Astacidea)

Rates of biodiversity loss are higher in freshwater ecosystems than in most terrestrial or marine ecosystems, making freshwater conservation a priority. However, prioritization methods are impeded by insufficient knowledge on the distribution and conservation status of freshwater taxa, particularly invertebrates. We evaluated the extinction risk of the world''s 590 freshwater crayfish species using the IUCN Categories and Criteria and found 32% of all species are threatened with extinction. The level of extinction risk differed between families, with proportionally more threatened species in the Parastacidae and Astacidae than in the Cambaridae. Four described species were Extinct and 21% were assessed as Data Deficient. There was geographical variation in the dominant threats affecting the main centres of crayfish diversity. The majority of threatened US and Mexican species face threats associated with urban development, pollution, damming and water management. Conversely, the majority of Australian threatened species are affected by climate change, harvesting, agriculture and invasive species. Only a small proportion of crayfish are found within the boundaries of protected areas, suggesting that alternative means of long-term protection will be required. Our study highlights many of the significant challenges yet to come for freshwater biodiversity unless conservation planning shifts from a reactive to proactive approach.     

Global habitat suitability models of terrestrial mammals

Detailed large-scale information on mammal distribution has often been lacking, hindering conservation efforts. We used the information from the 2009 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as a baseline for developing habitat suitability models for 5027 out of 5330 known terrestrial mammal species, based on their habitat relationships. We focused on the following environmental variables: land cover, elevation and hydrological features. Models were developed at 300 m resolution and limited to within species' known geographical ranges. A subset of the models was validated using points of known species occurrence. We conducted a global, fine-scale analysis of patterns of species richness. The richness of mammal species estimated by the overlap of their suitable habitat is on average one-third less than that estimated by the overlap of their geographical ranges. The highest absolute difference is found in tropical and subtropical regions in South America, Africa and Southeast Asia that are not covered by dense forest. The proportion of suitable habitat within mammal geographical ranges correlates with the IUCN Red List category to which they have been assigned, decreasing monotonically from Least Concern to Endangered. These results demonstrate the importance of fine-resolution distribution data for the development of global conservation strategies for mammals.     

Integrating field surveys and remote sensing data to study distribution, habitat use and conservation status of the herpetofauna of the Comoro Islands

We studied the non-marine reptile and amphibian species of the volcanic Comoro archipelago in the Western Indian Ocean, a poorly known island herpetofauna comprising numerous microendemic species of potentially high extinction risk and widespread, non-endemic and often invasive taxa. According to our data, the Comoro islands are inhabited by two amphibian species and at least 28 species of reptiles although ongoing genetic studies and unconfirmed historical records suggest an even higher species diversity. 14 of the 28 currently recognized species of terrestrial reptiles (50%) and the two amphibians are endemic to a single island or to the Comoro archipelago. The majority of species are most abundant at low elevation. However, a few endemic species, like the gekkonid lizards Paroedura sanctijohannis and Phelsuma nigristriata, are more common in or even confined to higher altitudes. We created habitat maps from remotely sensed data in combination with detailed species distribution maps produced using comprehensive data from field surveys between 2000 and 2010, literature, and historical locality records based on specimens in zoological collections. Using these data, we assessed the conservation status of the endemic terrestrial reptiles and amphibians according to the IUCN Red List criteria. Our results show that although little area of natural forest remains on the Comoros, many species are abundant in degraded forest or plantations. Competition and predation by invasive species appears to be the most important threat factor for the endemic herpetofauna, together with habitat degradation and destruction, which further favours invasive species. We propose the status Endangered for three species, Vulnerable for one species, Near Threatened for six species, Least Concern for four and Data Deficient for two species. The endemic subspecies Oplurus cuvieri comorensis is proposed for the status Critically Endangered. Based on the results of this study, seven areas of importance for reptile and amphibian conservation on the Comoros are identified. This study shows how remote sensing data can contribute to increasing accuracy and objectiveness of conservation assessments.     

Supporting Red List threat assessments with GeoCAT: geospatial conservation assessment tool

GeoCAT is an open source, browser based tool that performs rapid geospatial analysis to ease the process of Red Listing taxa. Developed to utilise spatially referenced primary occurrence data, the analysis focuses on two aspects of the geographic range of a taxon: the extent of occurrence (EOO) and the area of occupancy (AOO). These metrics form part of the IUCN Red List categories and criteria and have often proved challenging to obtain in an accurate, consistent and repeatable way. Within a familiar Google Maps environment, GeoCAT users can quickly and easily combine data from multiple sources such as GBIF, Flickr and Scratchpads as well as user generated occurrence data. Analysis is done with the click of a button and is visualised instantly, providing an indication of the Red List threat rating, subject to meeting the full requirements of the criteria. Outputs including the results, data and parameters used for analysis are stored in a GeoCAT file that can be easily reloaded or shared with collaborators. GeoCAT is a first step toward automating the data handling process of Red List assessing and provides a valuable hub from which further developments and enhancements can be spawned.     

甜菜种质资源遗传多样性研究与利用

通过多年对中国甜菜种质资源搜集、整理、繁种、鉴定及编目入库等方面进行科技攻关研究,弄清了目前我国甜菜中期库保存种质资源源遗传多样性的丰富程度,根据对已经编目入国家种质长期库的1382份甜菜种质资源材料的主要经济性状鉴定试验结果,证实了我国甜菜种质资源的块根产量、含糖率和产糖量均以西北生态区最高,华北生态区次之,东北生态区最低,同时其变异幅度也比较大。由此表明我国甜菜不同生态区保存的甜菜种质资源材料具有相当高的异质性和丰富的遗传基础,这将有利于推动我国甜菜科研及育种事业的可持续发展。     

A conservation assessment of the freshwater crabs of southern Africa (Brachyura: Potamonautidae)

Recent taxonomic revisions of the freshwater crabs of southern Africa (Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe) allow accurate depictions of their diversity, distribution patterns and conservation status. The southern African region is home to nineteen species of freshwater crabs all belonging to the genus Potamonautes (family Potamonautidae). These crabs show high levels of species endemism (84%) to the southern African region and to the country of South Africa (74%). The conservation status of each species is assessed using the IUCN (2003) Red List criteria, based on detailed compilations of the majority of known specimens. The results indicate that one species should be considered vulnerable, fifteen species least concern and three species data deficient. The results have been utilized by the IUCN for Red Lists, and may prove useful when developing a conservation strategy for southern Africa’s endemic freshwater crab fauna.     

Bryophyte Red List of Serbia and Montenegro

The bryophyte Red List of Serbia and Montenegro comprises 254 species (212 mosses and 42 liverworts). Serbia and Montenegro have 39.50% of threatened bryoflora. One moss species is considered as extinct (Encalypta serbica Katic). In the threatened categories there are 20 critically endangered (CR), 35 endangered (EN) and 100 vulnerable (VU) bryophyte species. Seventy-two species are considered to be of low risk, and 36 are too data deficient to place them in any category, but potentially with further investigation will enter one of the threat categories in the Red List.     

Developing and testing alien species indicators for Europe

Alien species indicators provide vital information to the biodiversity policy sector on the status-quo and trends of biological invasions and on the efficacy of response measures. Applicable at different geographical scales and organizational levels, alien species indicators struggle with data availability and quality. Based on policy needs and previous work on the global scale, we here present a set of six alien species indicators for Europe, which capture complementary facets of biological invasions in Europe: (a) an combined index of invasion trends, (b) an indicator on pathways of invasions, (c) the Red List Index of Invasive Alien Species (IAS), (d) an indicator of IAS impacts on ecosystem services, (e) trends in incidence of livestock diseases and (f) an indicator on costs for alien species management and research. Each of these indicators has its particular strengths and shortcomings, but combined they allow for a nuanced understanding of the status and trends of biological invasions in Europe. We found that the scale and impact of biological invasions are steadily increasing across all impact indicators, although societal response in recent years has increased. The Red List Index is fit-for-purpose and demonstrates that overall extinction risks (here shown for amphibians in Europe) are increasing. Introduction pathway dynamics have changed, with some pathways decreasing in relevance (e.g., biological control agents) and others increasing (e.g., horticultural trade) providing a leverage for targeted policy and stakeholder response. The IAS indicators presented here for the first time on a continental basis serve as a starting point for future improvements, and as a basis for monitoring the efficacy of the recent EU legislation of IAS. This will need a better workflow for data collection and management. To achieve this, all main actors must work toward improving the interoperability among existing databases and between data holders.     

Are research efforts on Animalia in the South Pacific associated with the conservation status or population trends?

Analyses of knowledge gaps can highlight imbalances in research, encouraging greater proportionality in the distribution of research efforts. In this research we used generalized linear mixed models (GLMM) with the aim to determine if research efforts for the period 2005–2015 for terrestrial vertebrates of Amphibia, Aves, Mammalia and Reptilia in the South Pacific region were correlated with conservation status (critically endangered (CR), endangered (EN), vulnerable (VU), least concern (LC) and near threatened (NT)) or population trends (increasing, stable, decreasing and unknown) through the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) database. Our results showed that research distribution was uneven across different classes. Out of 633623 investigated papers, the average number of publications per species was 43.7, 306.7, 717.6 and 115.3 for Amphibia (284 species), Aves (1306 species), Mammalia (243 species) and Reptilia (400 species), respectively. Consistently, the lower publication effort on Amphibia compared to other taxonomic classes was revealed as significant by GLMM analysis. There was no significant differences in research effort among levels of conservation status. However, we found significantly different publication efforts among population trends of all examined species in that species with “unknown” population trends gained significantly lower researchers’ attention compared to species with “decreasing” trend. Results also indicated that, although it was not significant, the highest attention is given to species with “increasing” population trend over all taxonomic classes. Using the Information Theoretic approach we also generated a set of competing models to identify most important factors influencing research efforts, revealing that the highest ranked model included taxonomic class and population trend.     

Neutral theory reveals the challenge of bending the curve for the post‐2020 Global Biodiversity Framework

In October, nations of the world will begin negotiations for the post‐2020 Global Biodiversity Framework under the Convention on Biological Diversity. An influential ambition is “bending the curve of biodiversity loss,” which aims to reverse the decline of global biodiversity indicators. A second relevant, yet less prominent, milestone is the 20th anniversary of the publication of The Unified Neutral Theory of Biodiversity and Biogeography. Here, I apply neutral theory to show how global biodiversity indicators for population size (Living Planet Index) and extinction threat (Red List Index) decline under neutral ecological drift. This demonstrates that declining indicators are not solely caused by deterministic species‐specific or geographical patterns of biodiversity loss. Instead, indicators are sensitive to nondirectional stochasticity. Thus, “bending the curve” could be assessed relative to a counterfactual based on neutral theory, rather than static baselines. If used correctly, the 20‐year legacy of neutral theory can be extended to make a valuable contribution to the post‐2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.