A third of the tropical African flora is potentially threatened with extinction

Preserving tropical biodiversity is an urgent challenge when faced with the growing needs of countries. Despite their crucial importance for terrestrial ecosystems, most tropical plant species lack extinction risk assessments, limiting our ability to identify conservation priorities. Using a novel approach aligned with IUCN Red List criteria, we conducted a continental-scale preliminary conservation assessment of 22,036 vascular plant species in tropical Africa. Our results underline the high level of extinction risk of the tropical African flora. Thirty-three percent of the species are potentially threatened with extinction, and another third of species are likely rare, potentially becoming threatened in the near future. Four regions are highlighted with a high proportion (>40%) of potentially threatened species: Ethiopia, West Africa, central Tanzania, and southern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Our approach represents a first step toward data-driven conservation assessments applicable at continental scales providing crucial information for sustainable economic development prioritization.

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Using publicly available data to conduct rapid assessments of extinction risk

10.1101/2020.12.14.413906 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Michael O Levin ◽

Jared B Meek ◽

Brian Boom ◽

Sara M Kross ◽

Evan A Eskew

Keyword(s):

Plant Species ◽

Extinction Risk ◽

Iucn Red List ◽

Red List ◽

Assessment Process ◽

Conservation Priorities ◽

Global Biodiversity Information Facility ◽

Red List Species ◽

Data Deficient ◽

Biodiversity Information

The IUCN Red List plays a key role in setting global conservation priorities. Species are added to the Red List through a rigorous assessment process that, while robust, can be quite time-intensive. Here, we test the rapid preliminary assessment of plant species extinction risk using a single Red List metric: Extent of Occurrence (EOO). To do so, we developed REBA (Rapid EOO-Based Assessment), a workflow that harvests and cleans data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), calculates each species' EOO, and assigns Red List categories based on that metric. We validated REBA results against 1,546 North American plant species already on the Red List and found ~90% overlap between REBA's rapid classifications and those of full IUCN assessments. Our preliminary workflow can be used to quickly evaluate data deficient Red List species or those in need of reassessment, and can prioritize unevaluated species for a full assessment.

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Conservation Status of Marine Biodiversity in Oceania: An Analysis of Marine Species on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species

Journal of Marine Biology ◽

10.1155/2011/247030 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 2011 ◽

pp. 1-14 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Beth A. Polidoro ◽

Cristiane T. Elfes ◽

Jonnell C. Sanciangco ◽

Helen Pippard ◽

Kent E. Carpenter

Keyword(s):

Threatened Species ◽

Environmental Changes ◽

Extinction Risk ◽

Conservation Status ◽

Marine Species ◽

Iucn Red List ◽

Red List ◽

Marine Biodiversity ◽

Conservation Priorities ◽

Conservation Action

Given the economic and cultural dependence on the marine environment in Oceania and a rapidly expanding human population, many marine species populations are in decline and may be vulnerable to extinction from a number of local and regional threats. IUCN Red List assessments, a widely used system for quantifying threats to species and assessing species extinction risk, have been completed for 1190 marine species in Oceania to date, including all known species of corals, mangroves, seagrasses, sea snakes, marine mammals, sea birds, sea turtles, sharks, and rays present in Oceania, plus all species in five important perciform fish groups. Many of the species in these groups are threatened by the modification or destruction of coastal habitats, overfishing from direct or indirect exploitation, pollution, and other ecological or environmental changes associated with climate change. Spatial analyses of threatened species highlight priority areas for both site- and species-specific conservation action. Although increased knowledge and use of newly available IUCN Red List assessments for marine species can greatly improve conservation priorities for marine species in Oceania, many important fish groups are still in urgent need of assessment.

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Regional Red List assessment of tree species in upper montane forests of the Tropical Andes

Oryx ◽

10.1017/s0030605315000198 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 49 (3) ◽

pp. 397-409 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Natalia Tejedor Garavito ◽

Adrian C. Newton ◽

Sara Oldfield

Keyword(s):

Tree Species ◽

Expert Knowledge ◽

Extinction Risk ◽

Plant Species Richness ◽

Iucn Red List ◽

Red List ◽

Conservation Strategies ◽

Tropical Andes ◽

Conservation Assessment ◽

Distribution Maps

AbstractThe Tropical Andes are characterized by a high level of endemism and plant species richness but are under pressure from human activities. We present the first regional conservation assessment of upper montane tree species in this region. We identified 3,750 tree species as occurring in this region, of which 917 were excluded because of a lack of data on their distribution. We identified a subset of 129 taxa that were restricted to higher elevations (> 1,500 m) but occurred in more than one country, thus excluding local endemics evaluated in previous national assessments. Distribution maps were created for each of these selected species, and extinction risk was assessed according to the IUCN Red List categories and criteria (version 3.1), drawing on expert knowledge elicited from a regional network of specialists. We assessed one species, Polylepis microphylla, as Critically Endangered, 47 species as Endangered and 28 as Vulnerable. Overall, 60% of the species evaluated were categorized as threatened, or 73% if national endemics are included. It is recommended that extinction risk assessments for tree species be used to inform the development of conservation strategies in the region, to avoid further loss of this important element of biodiversity.

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Tetrapods on the EDGE: Overcoming data limitations to identify phylogenetic conservation priorities

10.1101/232991 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Rikki Gumbs ◽

Claudia L. Gray ◽

Oliver R. Wearn ◽

Nisha R. Owen

Keyword(s):

Extinction Risk ◽

Phylogenetic Analyses ◽

Iucn Red List ◽

New Method ◽

Conservation Priorities ◽

Conservation Action ◽

Biodiversity Crisis ◽

Data Limitations ◽

Evolutionary Distinctiveness ◽

Conservation Prioritisation

AbstractThe scale of the ongoing biodiversity crisis requires both effective conservation prioritisation and urgent action. The EDGE metric, which prioritises species based on their Evolutionary Distinctiveness (ED) and Global Endangerment (GE), relies on adequate phylogenetic and extinction risk data to generate meaningful priorities for conservation. However, comprehensive phylogenetic analyses of large clades are extremely rare and, even when available, become quickly out-of-date due to the rapid rate of species descriptions and taxonomic revisions. Thus, it is important that conservationists can use the available data to incorporate evolutionary history into conservation prioritisation. We compared published and new methods to impute ED for species missing from a phylogeny whilst simultaneously correcting the ED scores of their close taxonomic relatives. We found that following artificial removal of species from a phylogeny, the new method provided the closest estimates of their “true” score, differing from the true ED score by an average of less than 1%, compared to the 31% and 38% difference of the previous imputation methods. Previous methods also substantially under- and over-estimated scores as more species were artificially removed from a phylogeny. We therefore used the new method to estimate ED scores for all tetrapods. From these scores we updated EDGE prioritisation rankings for all tetrapod species with IUCN Red List assessments, including the first EDGE prioritisation for reptiles. Further, we identified criteria to identify robust priority species in an effort to further inform conservation action whilst limiting uncertainty and anticipating future phylogenetic advances.

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Lost in time and space: re-assessment of conservation status in an arid-zone flora through targeted field survey

Australian Journal of Botany ◽

10.1071/bt14279 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 62 (8) ◽

pp. 674 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

J. L. Silcock ◽

A. J. Healy ◽

R. J. Fensham

Keyword(s):

Plant Species ◽

Arid Zone ◽

Conservation Status ◽

Vascular Plant ◽

Iucn Red List ◽

Arid Zones ◽

Arid Environments ◽

Eastern Australia ◽

The Status ◽

Conservation Assessments

Lack of basic data to assess plant species against IUCN Red List criteria is a major impediment to assigning accurate conservation status throughout large areas of the world. Erroneous assessments will be most prevalent in vast poorly surveyed areas where herbarium collections are sparse. In arid environments, assessments are further confounded by extreme temporal variability and poor understanding of the nature and magnitude of threats. We systematically re-assess the conservation status of an arid-zone flora. The status of all 1781 vascular plant species occurring across 635 300 km2 of inland eastern Australia was initially assessed through herbarium records and expert interviews. This process generated a list of apparently rare and potentially threatened species, which guided a targeted survey program over 4 years. Search effort and key data on populations of candidate species found were recorded and used to assess 91 species against IUCN criteria. One-third of species were widespread and abundant at least in certain seasons, but had been deemed rare due to sparse collections. The conservation status of 20, mostly newly recognised species from restricted habitats, was upgraded and 14 remained listed because of having restricted areas of occupancy. With the exception of 12 artesian spring species, continuing declines were documented for just six species. The criterion that allows for listing of species because of extreme fluctuations (in combination with restricted and fragmented populations) needs to be carefully interpreted in arid zones, where these fluctuations may be apparent rather than real, and may actually confer resilience to grazing for some species. Our approach facilitates robust conservation assessments across vast and poorly known arid regions, distinguishing species that have merely been lost in space and time from those that are at risk of extinction.

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Predicting plant conservation priorities on a global scale

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1804098115 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 115 (51) ◽

pp. 13027-13032 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

Tara A. Pelletier ◽

Bryan C. Carstens ◽

David C. Tank ◽

Jack Sullivan ◽

Anahí Espíndola

Keyword(s):

Plant Species ◽

Conservation Status ◽

Plant Conservation ◽

Global Scale ◽

Land Plant ◽

Conservation Priorities ◽

Conservation Assessment ◽

Biodiversity Science ◽

Machine Learning Approach ◽

The One

The conservation status of most plant species is currently unknown, despite the fundamental role of plants in ecosystem health. To facilitate the costly process of conservation assessment, we developed a predictive protocol using a machine-learning approach to predict conservation status of over 150,000 land plant species. Our study uses open-source geographic, environmental, and morphological trait data, making this the largest assessment of conservation risk to date and the only global assessment for plants. Our results indicate that a large number of unassessed species are likely at risk and identify several geographic regions with the highest need of conservation efforts, many of which are not currently recognized as regions of global concern. By providing conservation-relevant predictions at multiple spatial and taxonomic scales, predictive frameworks such as the one developed here fill a pressing need for biodiversity science.

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Automated conservation assessment of the orchid family using deep learning

10.1101/2020.06.11.145557 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Alexander Zizka ◽

Daniele Silvestro ◽

Pati Vitt ◽

Tiffany M. Knight

Keyword(s):

Sampling Bias ◽

Iucn Red List ◽

Oceanic Islands ◽

Red List ◽

Data Availability ◽

Conservation Assessment ◽

Tropical Plant ◽

Evaluation Bias ◽

Orchid Conservation ◽

Conservation Assessments

AbstractIUCN Red List assessments are essential for prioritizing conservation needs but are resource-intensive and therefore only available for a fraction of global species richness. Tropical plant species are particularly under-represented on the IUCN Red List. Automated conservation assessments based on digitally available geographic occurrence records can be a rapid alternative, but it is unclear how reliable these assessments are. Here, we present automated conservation assessments for 13,910 species of the diverse and globally distributed Orchid family (Orchidaceae), based on a novel method using a deep neural network (IUC-NN), most of which (13,049) were previously unassessed by the IUCN Red List. We identified 4,342 (31.2 % of the evaluated orchid species) as Possibly Threatened with extinction (equivalent to the IUCN categories CR, EN, or VU) and point to Madagascar, East Africa, south-east Asia, and several oceanic islands as priority areas for orchid conservation. Furthermore, the Orchid family provides a model, to test the sensitivity of automated assessment methods to issues with data availability, data quality and geographic sampling bias. IUC-NN identified threat-ened species with an accuracy of 84.3%, with significantly lower geographic evaluation bias compared to the IUCN Red List, and was robust against low data availability and geographic errors in the input data. Overall, our results demonstrate that automated assessments have an important role to play in achieving goals of identifying the species that are at greatest risk of extinction.

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Targeted expansion of Protected Areas to maximise the persistence of terrestrial mammals

10.1101/608992 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Sarah Mogg ◽

Constance Fastre ◽

Martin Jung ◽

Piero Visconti

Keyword(s):

Land Surface ◽

Extinction Risk ◽

Iucn Red List ◽

Red List ◽

Ecological Impacts ◽

Conservation Priorities ◽

Area Network ◽

Conservation Area ◽

Terrestrial Mammals ◽

Iucn Red List Criteria

ABSTRACTOver a quarter of species assessed by the IUCN Red List are threatened with extinction. A global commitment to protect 17% of land and 10% of the oceans by 2020 is close to being achieved, but with limited ecological impacts due to its inadequacy and poor enforcement. Here, we reverse-engineer IUCN Red List criteria to generate area-based conservation targets and spatial conservation priorities to minimize the extinction risk of the world terrestrial mammals. We find that approximately 60% of the Earth’s non-Antarctic land surface would require some form of protection. Our results suggest that global conservation priority schemes, among which the Aichi targets, will be inadequate to secure the persistence of terrestrial mammals. To achieve this goal, international cooperation is required to implement a connected and comprehensive conservation area network, guided by high priority regions outlined in this study.

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Conservation priorities and distribution patterns of vascular plant species along environmental gradients in Aberdare ranges forest

PhytoKeys ◽

10.3897/phytokeys.131.38124 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 131 ◽

pp. 91-113 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Solomon Kipkoech ◽

David Kimutai Melly ◽

Benjamin Watuma Mwema ◽

Geoffrey Mwachala ◽

Paul Mutuku Musili ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Species Richness ◽

Plant Species ◽

Endemic Species ◽

Vascular Plant ◽

Distribution Patterns ◽

Partial Least Square ◽

Least Square ◽

Partial Least Square Regression ◽

Conservation Priorities ◽

Conservation And Management

Distribution patterns of biodiversity and the factors influencing them are important in conservation and management strategies of natural resources. With impending threats from increased human population and global climatic changes, there is an urgent need for a comprehensive understanding of these patterns, more so in species-rich tropical montane ecosystems where little is known about plant diversity and distribution. Vascular species richness along elevation and climatic gradients of Aberdare ranges forest were explored. A total of 1337 species in 137 families, 606 genera, 82 subspecies and 80 varieties were recorded. Correlations, simple linear regression and Partial least square regression analysis were used to assess richness and diversity patterns of total plants, herbs, shrubs, climbers, arboreal and endemic species from 2000–4000 m above sea level. Total plant species richness showed a monotonic declining relationship with elevation with richness maxima at 2000–2100 m a.s.l., while endemic species richness had a positive unimodal increase along elevation with peaks at 3600–3700 m a.s.l. Herbs, shrubs, climbers and arboreal had significant negative relationships with altitude, excluding endemism which showed positive relations. In contrast, both air and soil temperatures had positive relationships with taxa richness groups and negative relations with endemic species. Elevation was found to have higher relative influence on plant richness and distribution in Aberdare ranges forest. For effective conservation and management of biodiversity in Aberdare, localized dynamic conservation interventions are recommended in contrast to broad and static strategies. Establishment of conservation zones and migration corridors are necessary to safeguard biodiversity in line with envisaged global climatic vicissitudes.

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Developing a High-speed Imaging Set-up for Small Herbaria: a case study from a national herbarium of Nepal (KATH)

Biodiversity Information Science and Standards ◽

10.3897/biss.3.37095 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 ◽

Author(s):

Sally King ◽

Bhaskar Adhikari ◽

Pratikshya Chalise ◽

Sajita Dhakal ◽

Til Kumari Thapa

Keyword(s):

Plant Species ◽

High Speed ◽

Vascular Plant ◽

Conservation Priorities ◽

Herbarium Specimens ◽

High Speed Imaging ◽

Plant Resources ◽

National Herbarium ◽

Specimen Collection ◽

Set Up

The Himalayan region is recognised as one of the ‘hottest’ global Biodiversity hotspots, with a third of all species within its range occurring in Nepal. The documentation of the Flora of Nepal is therefore of great importance both nationally and internationally (National Herbarium & Plant Laboratories (KATH) 2019). The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) leads the Flora of Nepal project in collaboration with the Department of Plant Resources (DPR, part of the Ministry of Forests and Environment), Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), Central Department of Botany, Tribhuvan University (CDB-TU) and the Society of Himalayan Botany, Tokyo (SHB) (Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh 2014). The National Herbarium and Plant Laboratories (KATH), Kathmandu, Nepal – part of DPR – contains approximately 165,000 herbarium specimens, representing 50% of vascular plant species and 25% of lower plant species known to exist in Nepal. The digitisation of herbarium specimens held at KATH will facilitate access to specimen data, expedite the flora writing process, and make it possible to update species distributions to inform conservation priorities. The existing rate of digitisation was slow with 70-75 specimens being fully digitised a day by three digitisers. Specimen collection labels were fully databased in a Microsoft Access database and imaged at 600 PPI using a single Herbscan. At the current rate of digitisation it will take 7 – 8 years to completely digitise the KATH herbarium. As part of the Darwin Initiative project: Science-based interventions reversing negative impacts of invasive plants in Nepal (http://www.darwininitiative.org.uk/project/23031), a new camera imaging set-up and workflow was devised at RBGE, with installation and staff training provided on-site at KATH herbarium (Fig. 1). This has almost tripled the rate of digitisation to 180-200 specimens per day. The decision making processes that took place regarding hardware and software are discussed including: speed versus quality, some on-site considerations, the installation process and the proposals put forward to further improve the rate of digitisation.

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