Anthropogenic drivers leading to regional extinction of threatened plants: insights from regional Red Data Books of Russia

Abstract

The investigation of drivers leading to species extinction is relevant task in global biodiversity conservation. Despite of the large area of Russia, there is a remarkable lack of biodiversity data from this country. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the threats proved for threatened plant taxa according to 59 regional Red Data Books of Russia. For each Red Data Book species, we identified threats, i.e. drivers leading to species extinction, according to sections “Limiting factors” or “Limiting factors and threats” of regional Red Data Books. To identify relation of extinction drivers to natural conditions, we indicated, which biomes are located within each region using scheme of ecoregions. We found that in 59 Russian regions, the total taxonomic list of Red Data Book plants contained of 3390 taxa belonging to 152 families and 869 genera. The biogeographical position of regions was reflected in the similarity of lists of the Red Data Book species on the basis of Jaccard index. In regards of extinction drivers, we found that among 12 of them habitat degradation (16.5%), grazing (14.6%), urbanization (13.5%), and hydrological disturbance (10.8%) were the most impactful factors affecting the Red Data Book plant species in Russian regions. Then, we found that in certain level, the geographical position of a region is correlated with the drivers leading to plant species extinction in Russia. We recommended to continue more detail research to reveal factors affected or led to plant species extinction in Russia as a large and highly diverse country of Eurasia.