A new method to estimate areas of occupancy using herbarium data

Abstract

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species is an important instrument to evaluate the conservation status of living organisms. However, Red List assessors have been limited by the lack of reliable methods to calculate the area of occupancy (AOO) of species, which is an important parameter for red list assessments. Here we present a new practical method to estimate AOO based on herbarium specimen data: the Cartographic method by Conglomerates (CMC). This method, which combines elements from the Areographic and Cartographic methods previously used to calculate AOO, was tested with ten cactus species from the Chihuahuan Desert Region. The results derived from this novel procedure produced in average AOO calculations 3.5 and 5.5 smaller than the Areographic and Cartographic methods, respectively. The CMC takes into account the existence of disjunctions in the distribution range of the species, producing comparatively more accurate AOO estimations. Another advantage of the CMC is that it generates results more harmonic with the current Red List criteria. In contrast, the overestimated results of the Areographic and Cartographic methods tend to artificially categorize the species, even extremely narrow endemics, in lower endangerment status.