Assessment of the endangered status and conservation priorities for the rare and endangered plant species in Inner Mongolia, China

Abstract

With 127 rare and endangered plant species of Inner Mongolian in Catalogue of Rare and Endangered Plants in China, China Plant Red Book, National Key Protected Wild Plants List (List No. 1), China Species Red List, Red List of Biodiversity in China: Volume of Higher Plants, List of Rare and Endangered Plants in Inner Mongolia and Atlas of Rare and Endangered Plants in Inner Mongolia as objects, an evaluation system of the threatened grades and conservation priority of rare and endangered plants were built based on data collection and consultation with experts. We set the five criteria, including endangered coefficient, genetic coefficient, utilization coefficient, habitat coefficient, and reproduction coefficient, under which there were 17 subordinate indicators. The analytic hierarchy process was employed to determine the weight of indicators in the system and calculate the endangered grades and conservation priority grades for the rare and endangered species. According to the results of evaluations, two critically endangered (CR) species, 13 endangered (EN) species, 37 vulnerable (VU) species, 44 near threatened (NT) species, and 31 least concern (LC) species were identified, accounting for 1.6%, 10.2%, 29.1%, 34.7% and 24.4% of the total, respectively. Among those species, 52 species were threatened, namely CR, EN and VU species, accounting for 40.9% of the total. The evaluation results of conservation priority grades were: 35 species of Class 1 protected plants, 72 species of Class 2 protected plants, and 20 species of Class 3 protected plants, accounting for 27.6%, 56.7% and 15.8% of the total, respectively. According to the results of evaluation comparison between Red List of Biodiversity in China: Volume of Higher Plants and List of Rare and Endangered Plants in Inner Mongolia, endangered grades of 75 plant species and the protection classes of 62 plant species were calibrated. In this evaluation, the endangered grades of nine plant species and the protection classes of 32 plant species were newly added.