Implications of poor taxonomy in conservation

Red Lists are legal instruments that guide decisions within the context of conservation. Such lists can indicate the most appropriate conservation actions, leading to choices of priority areas for conservation, or create alternatives to ensure the preservation of threatened species. However, if Red Lists are effective tools in the conservation of threatened species, then it is important that we have guaranteed the quality of taxonomic delimitation of these taxa. Here we discuss a case of taxonomic confusion, emphasizing the implications of misidentification in Red Lists. To avoid mistakes in species conservation, we advocate that a minimum level of taxonomic knowledge is needed to ensure success in preserving target species. Therefore, complementarity of taxonomy and conservation guarantee stronger conservation actions.     

Birds to watch: a Red Data List for East Africa

Bennun, L.A., Njoroge, P. & Pomeroy, D. 2000. Birds to watch: a Red Data List for East Africa. Ostrich 71 (1 & 2): 310–314.

The value of Red Data books and lists is well established; there has been much recent work on improving the criteria for listing species of conservation concern. So far these have been applied mainly at the global level. Regional lists can be useful, however, in improving the resolution of conservation priorities and setting an agenda for research, monitoring and conservation, especially where data are collected by amateur naturalists. A Red Data list for East African birds has been drawn up following an eight-month process that involved wide consultation within the region, defined as Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya and Burundi. The criteria for listing were based on those defined by IUCN, and summarised in a single, simple table that could be used for screening large numbers of species. A criterion based on geographic range eliminated from consideration vagrant species or those on the extreme edge of their range. A separate Near Threatened category (Lower Risk but very close to Vulnerable) proved useful. An additional category of Regional Responsibility captured species that are entirely or mainly confiied to East Africa, or to three habitats where the region has special responsibility: coastal forests, Albertine Rift forests, and papyrus swamps. A total of 107 species (about 8% of the regional avifauna) were listed as regionally threatened. This includes four Critical, 18 Endangered and 85 Vulnerable species, proportions very close to those expected from the theoretical probabilities of extinction in each case. One hundred and four species were listed as Near-threatened and 153 as Regional Responsibility, 87 of which are not under threat. Placing a species in a particular category of threat, for explicit reasons, poses an hypothesis about its status that can be tested with additional data. This process is now under way with the compilation of a more detailed, annotated list.     

A comparative analysis of global, national, and state red lists for threatened amphibians in Brazil

The knowledge about the conservation status of species is an important data for conservation biology. Therefore, threatened species lists are a powerful tool for conservation planning and prioritization. Our objective is to compare the global, the national and state red lists of amphibians in Brazil. Threatened species were categorized according to their listing in one or several of these lists. We analyzed for true inconsistencies across lists in order to evaluate practical consequences of such incongruences on amphibian conservation in Brazil. We recorded a total of 61 threatened amphibian species in Brazil (across all red lists). Only one species, Phrynomedusa fimbriata, was listed as Extinct (both in IUCN, Brazil and S?o Paulo lists). A total of eleven endemic species are listed as threatened by the global red list, but do not appear in Brazil’s national red list, which represent an inconsistence among these lists. Besides that, the threat category of Thoropa lutzi and Thoropa petropolitana, two endemic species, differ among both lists, which also represents a problem between both lists. These mismatches may be due to several reasons such as different interpretation of the criteria; different methodologies used; different data availability on species; differences in the dates of assessments processes; the assessors’ attitudes to uncertainty; outdated red lists. Harmonization among red lists permits a better picture of threatened amphibian diversity across scales and to develop global, national and state plans to complement conservation actions in order to maximize the chance of success of these initiatives.     

Applying red lists to the evaluation of agricultural habitat: regular occurrence of threatened birds,vascular plants,and bryophytes in field margins of Poland

Using the assessments of conservation status of flora and fauna, we discuss declining species in semi-natural field margins and stress the importance of these vanishing habitats. Seventy field margins in the diverse farmland of SW Poland were investigated with regard to their vascular plants, bryophytes and breeding birds. We checked the occurrence of threatened and conservation concern species, i.e. those listed in local, national or European threatened species lists, and birds with an unfavorable conservation status in Europe. Of a total of 673 species, 18 classified as threatened were recorded: 12 vascular plants (2.2 % of the total number of species), five bryophytes (5.6 %), and one bird species (2.0 %). Threatened plants occurred in 18.6 % of study plots, bryophytes in 20.0 % and birds in 12.9 %. Eleven bird species, noted in 95.7 % of study plots, had an unfavorable conservation status in Europe. Increasing volumes of trees and shrubs significantly increased the overall richness in each taxa. In percentage terms the occurrence of focal species in all three taxa tended to be higher in shrubby than in herbaceous and tree-lined margins. Our data demonstrate that field margins in Central European arable farmland regularly support rare and threatened species, and therefore deserve greater conservation efforts. Red lists along with alternative listing approaches can be employed to evaluate the biodiversity of fine-scale habitats, but their applicability depends on the taxonomic group and geographical scale of the lists, reflecting different conservation priorities.     

A comparison of point-scoring procedures for species prioritization and allocation of seed collection resources in a mountain region

Setting species priorities is commonly based on the assessment of multiple conservation criteria, and point-scoring methods are broadly used for obtaining ranked species lists. However, the implications of different procedures in the performance and application of resulting lists have been scarcely investigated. In this study, we test the effect of using distinct transformation and summarization of criteria for computing ranked lists for species prioritization and allocation of seed collection resources. The study is focused on the Cantabrian Range (Spain), where 127 vascular plants of conservation concern were scored according to four criteria (threat, protection, endemicity and rarity) related to different geographical scales. Four conservation priority indices (CPI) were computed using a combination of (a) ordinal- versus quantile-weighted transformation and (b) mean versus factorial summarization. Quantile transformation and factorial summarization provided a more quantitative CPI. Although the contribution of criteria to the final indices was different under quantile and ordinal transformations, the four CPI were strongly correlated. However, slight differences between indices reflected divergences in the selection of species priorities when low conservation funds are available, and 14 to 32% of the species composition in priority groups changed. Our results suggest that different point-scoring procedures might have high impact on the application of priority lists for selecting conservation targets, especially when different funding scenarios are compared. We also recommend to (1) avoid ordinal scoring methods, (2) use unequally weighted transformations and (3) apply point-scoring methods based on multi-scale criteria for integrating existing lists in biogeographical areas     

Where are threatened ferns found? Global conservation priorities for pteridophytes

Recent efforts to improve the representation of plant species included on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species through the IUCN Sampled Red List Index (SRLI) for Plants have led to the assessment of almost 1000 additional species of pteridophytes and lycophytes under IUCN Red List criteria. Species were selected at random from all lineages of pteridophytes and lycophytes and are taxonomically as well as ecologically representative of pteridophyte and lycophyte diversity. 16% of pteridophyte and lycophyte species are globally threatened with extinction and 22% are of elevated conservation concern (threatened or Near Threatened); of species of pteridophytes and lycophytes previously included on the Red List, 54% were considered threatened. Over half of pteridophyte and lycophyte species assessed for the SRLI use estimates of range size; therefore the method used to measure range may affect the Red List category assigned. We evaluated this using two alternative metrics for estimating range, species distribution modelling (SDM) and ecologically suitable habitat (ESH), for 227 species endemic to the Neotropical biogeographic realm. Differences between range estimates were small when ranges were small but increased with increasing range size. For 58 (25.6%) species alternative modelling techniques result in the species meeting the threshold for a different IUCN Red List category from using extent of occurrence. Modelling threatened species distributions also highlights priority areas for conservation in tropical and subtropical montane forests that are the most species-rich habitat for small-range pteridophyte and lycophyte species, but which are now increasingly subject to rapid conversion to agriculture.     

Determination of conservation priorities in regions with multiple political jurisdictions

Red lists serve as the most prominent tool for priority setting in applied conservation, even though they were not originally designed for this task. Hence, threat status does not always reflect actual conservation needs and can be very different from actual conservation priorities. Therefore, red lists may at best be a suboptimal tool for setting conservation priorities in a country or region. As a response, a range of alternative or complementary tools have been developed, with approaches, methods, and parameters such as population decline, population center etc. used, differing widely among countries. One recent development is the combination of conservation status with a measure of the international importance of a population in a focal region for the global survival of a species. Here, we provide a new method that integrates the two concepts while keeping them conceptually separate. The main benefit of this method is that it can be applied across variable geographical scales such as regions, countries, and even continents. Furthermore, it allows for better recommendations for applied conservation and conservation policy development than the two concepts in isolation. Our method, if applied internationally, would allow for a standardized priority setting in species conservation, would be highly comparable between countries, and would lead to a more efficient use of the limited financial and human resources for monitoring and conservation of biodiversity.     

长白山高山苔原带植物濒危现状及保护级别评估

通过野外调查、文献查阅、专家咨询及市场调查等手段获得长白山高山苔原带植物生存状况、分布数量的基本数据。在查阅文献的基础上,借助专家咨询构建了长白山高山苔原带植物受危等级、优先保护定量评估体系。该体系包含3个子系统,每个子系统下设不同指标共计12个。通过专家咨询法和层次分析法相结合的方法确定各子系统及各指标的权重。共评估植物94种,其中极危种3种,濒危种6种,易危种22种,近危种42种,无危种21种;在保护的缓急程度上,属于特级保护的有5种,一级保护的有6种,二级保护的有34种,三级保护的有30种,暂缓保护的有19种。评估结果与以往的红色名录进行了比较,一些从未列入红色目录的种类在本研究结果中有所体现。相反,有些曾被列入红色名录的物种在本次评估中被列为"无危"。对评估结果与以往红色名录之间产生差异种类及原因进行了讨论。     

The use of Senate inquiries for threatened species conservation

Global biodiversity continues to decline at a steady rate, especially in Australia where 10% of the land mammal population has become extinct since European settlement. The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) list of threatened species is Australia's version of the IUCN red‐list; however, not all species fit easily within the EPBC guidelines and criteria for listing. Recently, a high‐profile Senate inquiry was used to bring about the listing of the koala, Phascolarctos cinereus, although it had previously been deemed ineligible for threatened species status. We are concerned that the use of Senate Inquiries will become more frequent now that a precedent has been set. We suggest they are not an appropriate means of threatened species conservation because they are politically topical, not necessarily based on expert opinion and do not carry any need for legislative response. Successful species conservation should be based on sound ecological knowledge embedded within a transparent and logical decision framework.     

Examining the evidence for chytridiomycosis in threatened amphibian species

Extinction risks are increasing for amphibians due to rising threats and minimal conservation efforts. Nearly one quarter of all threatened/extinct amphibians in the IUCN Red List is purportedly at risk from the disease chytridiomycosis. However, a closer look at the data reveals that Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (the causal agent) has been identified and confirmed to cause clinical disease in only 14% of these species. Primary literature surveys confirm these findings; ruling out major discrepancies between Red List assessments and real-time science. Despite widespread interest in chytridiomycosis, little progress has been made between assessment years to acquire evidence for the role of chytridiomycosis in species-specific amphibian declines. Instead, assessment teams invoke the precautionary principle when listing chytridiomycosis as a threat. Precaution is valuable when dealing with the world's most threatened taxa, however scientific research is needed to distinguish between real and predicted threats in order to better prioritize conservation efforts. Fast paced, cost effective, in situ research to confirm or rule out chytridiomycosis in species currently hypothesized to be threatened by the disease would be a step in the right direction. Ultimately, determining the manner in which amphibian conservation resources are utilized is a conversation for the greater conservation community that we hope to stimulate here.     

湖北赛武当自然保护区野生珍稀植物优先保护定量研究

通过对湖北赛武当国家级自然保护区内的野生珍稀植物资源进行调查,运用濒危系数、遗传价值系数和物种价值系数,计算出物种优先保护值,以确定物种濒危等级和优先保护等级。结果显示：（1）该区内共有珍稀保护植物33种,隶属于26科33属,其中易危15种、近危11种、安全种7种;（2）该区珍稀植物优先保护值的范围为0.2631~0.6985,据此得出33种珍稀植物的优先保护等级为：Ⅰ级6种、Ⅱ级13种、Ⅲ级12种、Ⅳ级2种。（3）本研究结果与相关珍稀保护植物名录的濒危等级和优先保护级别存在较大差异,这可能是由于生境破碎化和人为干扰导致大部分植物在本区受威胁程度加重,因此应强化管理。     

Application of the IUCN Red Listing system to setting species targets for conservation planning purposes

Biodiversity targets, or estimates of the quantities of biodiversity features that should be conserved in a region, are fundamental to systematic conservation planning. We propose that targets for species should be based on the quantitative thresholds developed for the Vulnerable category of the IUCN Red List system, thereby avoiding future listings of species in an IUCN Red List threat category or an increase in the extinction risk, or ultimate extinction, of species already listed as threatened. Examples of this approach are presented for case studies from South Africa, including threatened taxa listed under the IUCN Red List criteria of A to D, a species listed as Near Threatened, a species of conservation concern due to its rarity, and one species in need of recovery. The method gives rise to multiple representation targets, an improvement on the often used single representation targets that are inadequate for long term maintenance of biodiversity or the arbitrary multiple representation and percentage targets that are sometimes adopted. Through the implementation of the resulting conservation plan, these targets will ensure that the conservation status of threatened species do not worsen over time by qualifying for higher categories of threat and may actually improve their conservation status by eliminating the threat of habitat loss and stabilizing population declines. The positive attributes ascribed to the IUCN Red List system, and therefore to the species targets arising from this approach, are important when justifying decisions that limit land uses known to be detrimental to biodiversity.     

中国植物受威胁等级评估系统概述

濒危物种保护是生物多样性保护工作的重要组成部分, 而物种受威胁等级评估则是濒危物种保护的方向指引。经过多年的发展, 物种受威胁等级的评估由定性评估逐渐向定量评估为主、定性评估为辅的方向发展。本文综述了国内植物受威胁等级定量评估系统的研究进展, 同时介绍了国外较为成熟的IUCN红色名录评估系统、CITES评估系统、美国自然保育协会评估系统, 提出未来制定受威胁物种定量评估标准时要兼顾以下方面: (1)等级设置定义要明确、统一且合理; (2)评估标准应该定量化、客观且不冗余; (3)评估系统应该适应不同地理范围, 最好能同时表达出各范围的受威胁等级; (4)评估指标要包含物种动态信息, 能定量分析物种在过去或者未来的变化。此外, 本文认为国内的物种受威胁等级定量评估系统应该形成规范化的大纲, 加大宣传力度, 尽量将理论研究与具体的保护行动结合起来; 同时, 我国还应该采用全球广泛应用的受威胁等级评估系统获取物种受威胁等级, 将国内生物多样性保护工作纳入到全球范围中去。     

Automated assessment reveals that the extinction risk of reptiles is widely underestimated across space and phylogeny

The Red List of Threatened Species, published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), is a crucial tool for conservation decision-making. However, despite substantial effort, numerous species remain unassessed or have insufficient data available to be assigned a Red List extinction risk category. Moreover, the Red Listing process is subject to various sources of uncertainty and bias. The development of robust automated assessment methods could serve as an efficient and highly useful tool to accelerate the assessment process and offer provisional assessments. Here, we aimed to (1) present a machine learning–based automated extinction risk assessment method that can be used on less known species; (2) offer provisional assessments for all reptiles—the only major tetrapod group without a comprehensive Red List assessment; and (3) evaluate potential effects of human decision biases on the outcome of assessments. We use the method presented here to assess 4,369 reptile species that are currently unassessed or classified as Data Deficient by the IUCN. The models used in our predictions were 90% accurate in classifying species as threatened/nonthreatened, and 84% accurate in predicting specific extinction risk categories. Unassessed and Data Deficient reptiles were considerably more likely to be threatened than assessed species, adding to mounting evidence that these species warrant more conservation attention. The overall proportion of threatened species greatly increased when we included our provisional assessments. Assessor identities strongly affected prediction outcomes, suggesting that assessor effects need to be carefully considered in extinction risk assessments. Regions and taxa we identified as likely to be more threatened should be given increased attention in new assessments and conservation planning. Lastly, the method we present here can be easily implemented to help bridge the assessment gap for other less known taxa.

The Red List of Threatened Species, published by the IUCN, is a crucial tool for conservation decision making, but is subject to various sources of uncertainty and bias. Modelling the threat status of all global reptiles identifies increased threat to many groups of reptiles across many regions of the world, beyond those currently recognized; moreover, it highlights the effects of the IUCN assessment procedure on eventual threat categories.     

Warning times for species extinctions due to climate change

Climate change is likely to become an increasingly major obstacle to slowing the rate of species extinctions. Several new assessment approaches have been proposed for identifying climate‐vulnerable species, based on the assumption that established systems such as the IUCN Red List need revising or replacing because they were not developed to explicitly consider climate change. However, no assessment approach has been tested to determine its ability to provide advanced warning time for conservation action for species that might go extinct due to climate change. To test the performance of the Red List system in this capacity, we used linked niche‐demographic models with habitat dynamics driven by a ‘business‐as‐usual’ climate change scenario. We generated replicate 100‐year trajectories for range‐restricted reptiles and amphibians endemic to the United States. For each replicate, we categorized the simulated species according to IUCN Red List criteria at annual, 5‐year, and 10‐year intervals (the latter representing current practice). For replicates that went extinct, we calculated warning time as the number of years the simulated species was continuously listed in a threatened category prior to extinction. To simulate data limitations, we repeated the analysis using a single criterion at a time (disregarding other listing criteria). Results show that when all criteria can be used, the Red List system would provide several decades of warning time (median = 62 years; >20 years for 99% of replicates), but suggest that conservation actions should begin as soon as a species is listed as Vulnerable, because 50% of replicates went extinct within 20 years of becoming uplisted to Critically Endangered. When only one criterion was used, warning times were substantially shorter, but more frequent assessments increased the warning time by about a decade. Overall, we found that the Red List criteria reliably provide a sensitive and precautionary way to assess extinction risk under climate change.     

内蒙古珍稀濒危植物濒危现状及优先保护评估

以《中国珍稀濒危保护植物名录》、《中国植物红皮书》、《国家重点保护野生植物名录(第一批)》、《中国物种红色名录》、《中国生物多样性红色名录(高等植物卷)》、《内蒙古珍稀濒危保护植物名录》和《内蒙古珍稀濒危植物图谱》中127种内蒙古珍稀濒危植物为研究对象,通过资料收集及专家咨询,构建了内蒙古珍稀濒危植物受威胁等级、优先保护评估体系.建立了濒危系数、遗传价值系数、利用价值系数、生境系数、繁殖系数5项准则,准则下共设17个指标;运用层次分析法确定指标体系权重,计算出珍稀濒危植物濒危等级及优先保护级别.结果表明: 极危种2种、濒危种13种、易危种37种、近危种44种、无危种31种,分别占总数的1.6%、10.2%、29.1%、34.7%、24.4%.其中,受威胁种(极危、濒危和易危种)共52种,占总种数的40.9%.一级保护植物35种、二级保护植物72种、三级保护植物20种,分别占总数的27.6%、56.7%、15.8%.本评估结果与《中国生物多样性红色名录(高等植物卷)》、《内蒙古珍稀濒危保护植物名录》相比,有75种植物的濒危等级和62种植物的保护级别发生了变化.其中新增了9种植物的濒危等级评估和32种植物的保护级别.     

Biodiversity hotspots are not congruent with conservation areas in the Gulf of California

As marine systems are threatened by increasing human impacts, mechanisms to maintain biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services are needed. Protecting areas of conservation importance may serve as a proxy for maintaining these functions, while also facilitating efficient use and management of limited resources. Biodiversity hotspots have been used as surrogates for spatial conservation importance; however, as many protected areas have been established opportunistically and under differing criteria, it is unclear how well they actually protect hotspots. We evaluated how well the current protected area network and priority areas selected through previous systematic conservation planning exercises preserve biodiversity hotspots in the Gulf of California, Mexico. We also determined spatial congruence between biodiversity hotspots based on different criteria, which may determine their ability to be used as surrogates for each other. We focus on the Gulf of California because it is a megadiverse system where limited information regarding species diversity and distribution has constrained development of strategies for conservation and management. We developed a species occurrence database and identified biodiversity hotspots using four different criteria: species richness, rarity, endemism, and threatened species. We interpolated species occurrence, while accounting for heterogeneous sampling efforts. We then assessed overlap of hotspots with existing protected areas and priority areas, and between hotspots derived by distinct criteria. We gathered 286,533 occurrence records belonging to 12,105 unique species, including 6388 species identified as rare, 642 as endemic, and 386 as threatened. We found that biodiversity hotspots showed little spatial overlap with areas currently under protection and previously identified priority areas. Our results highlight the importance of distinct spatial areas of biodiversity and suggest that different ecological mechanisms sustain different aspects of diversity and multiple criteria should be used when defining conservation areas.     

Insular bats and research effort: a review of global patterns and priorities

相似文献   

A decision tool for listing species for protection on different geographic scales and administrative levels

An important task in conservation biology is to assess the spatial scale pertinent for species protection since some species may require protection throughout their distribution, others in only part of their range. Once this is done, species can be correctly identified for listing at different administrative levels (e.g. continental, national, and local). Here, we propose an objective method to list taxa at nested administrative levels based on three criteria (responsibility, rarity and vulnerability). We tested the method using quantitative data on the distribution, abundance and decline of orchids in France. The proposed method enables increased protection status in regions where species’ abundance and diversity are higher, gives priority to species for which an individual administrative unit has high responsibility and allows objective integration of species decline at different administrative levels. The method also enables the integration of locally rare species at their distribution limits and avoids repetition of species listing across second-level administrative units. The use of an objective method such as this could contribute to a standardised system of priority setting that integrates the geographic scale of rarity in relation to different administrative levels for protection.     

Conservation of Chinese Theaceae species under future climate and land use changes

Aim

Climate and land use changes are two major pervasive and growing global causes of rapid changes in the distribution patterns of biodiversity, challenging the future effectiveness of protected areas (PAs), which were mainly designed based on a static view of biodiversity. Therefore, evaluating the effectiveness of protected areas for protecting the species threatened by climate and land use change is critical for future biodiversity conservation.

Location

China.

Methods

Here, using distributions of 200 Chinese Theaceae species and ensemble species distribution models, we identified species threatened by future climate and land use change (i.e. species with predicted loss of suitable habitat ≥30%) under scenarios incorporating climate change, land use change and dispersal. We then estimate the richness distribution patterns of threatened species and identify priority conservation areas and conservation gaps of the current PA network.

Results

Our results suggest that 36.30%–51.85% of Theaceae species will be threatened by future climate and land use conditions and that although the threatened species are mainly distributed at low latitudes in China under both current and future periods, the mean richness of the threatened species per grid cell will decline by 0.826–3.188 species by the 2070s. Moreover, we found that these priority conservation areas are highly fragmented and that the current PA network only covers 14.21%–20.87% of the ‘areas worth exploring’ and 6.91%–7.91% of the ‘areas worth attention’.

Main Conclusions

Our findings highlight the necessity of establishing new protected areas and ecological corridors in priority conservation areas to protect the threatened species. Moreover, our findings also highlight the importance of taking into consideration the potential threatened species under future climate and land use conditions when designating priority areas for biodiversity conservation.