International Union For Conservation Of Nature Red List Research Articles

Mammal recovery inside and outside terrestrial protected areas.

Protected areas are a key component of global conservation, and the world is aiming to increase protected areas to cover 30% of land and water through the 30 × 30 Initiative under the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. However, factors affecting their success or failure in regard to promoting mammal population recovery are not well studied, particularly using quantitative approaches comparing across diverse taxa, biomes, and countries. To better understand how protected areas contribute to mammalian recovery, we conducted an analysis of 2706 mammal populations both inside and outside of protected areas worldwide. We calculated the annual percent change of mammal populations withinand outside of terrestrial protected areas and examined the relationship between the percent change and a suite of human and natural characteristics including biome, region, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) protected area category, IUCN Red List classification, and taxonomic order. Our results show that overall mammal populations inside and outside of protected areas are relatively stable. It appears that Threatened mammals are doing better inside of protected areas than outside, whereas the opposite is true for species of least concern and Near Threatened species. We also found significant population increases in protected areas classified as category III and significant population decreases in protected and unprotected areas throughout Oceania. Our results demonstrate that terrestrial protected areas can be an important approach for mammalian recovery and conservation.

Contributions of the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems to risk-based design and management of protected and conserved areas in Africa.

Protected and conserved areas (PCAs) are key ecosystem management tools for conserving biodiversity and sustaining ecosystem services and social cobenefits. As countries adopt a 30% target for protection of land and sea under the Global Biodiversity Framework of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, a critical question emerging is, which 30%? A risk-based answer to this question is that the 30% that returns the greatest reductions in risks of species extinction and ecosystem collapse should be protected. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List protocols provide practical methods for assessing these risks. All species, including humans, depend on the integrity of ecosystems for their well-being and survival. Africa is strategically important for ecosystem management due to convergence of high ecosystem diversity, intense pressures, and high levels of human dependency on nature. We reviewed the outcomes (e.g., applications of ecosystem red-list assessments to protected-area design, conservation planning, and management) of a symposium at the inaugural African Protected Areas Congress convened to discuss roles of the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems in the design and management of PCAs. Recent progress was made in ecosystem assessment, with 920 ecosystem types assessed against the IUCN Red List criteria across 21 countries. Although these ecosystems spanned a diversity of environments across the continent, the greatest thematic gaps were for freshwater, marine, and subterranean realms, and large geographic gaps existed in North Africa and parts of West and East Africa. Assessment projects were implemented by a diverse community of government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and researchers. The assessments have influenced policy and management by informing extensions to and management of formal protected area networks supporting decision-making for sustainable development, and informing ecosystem conservation and threat abatement within boundaries of PCAs and in surrounding landscapes and seascapes. We recommend further integration of risk assessments in environmental policy and enhanced investment in ecosystem red-list assessment to fill current gaps.

DnaDot - fixing ecology and evolution’s blind spot, population size

To understand and manage any ecosystem, one of the most critical indicators is census population size (‘Nc’) for each component species. This is why the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) stipulates that it is ideal to know census size to an accuracy of ±10 % for each managed, endangered or exploited population. Knowledge of population size is also critical for: ecological studies in general; allowing biodiversity measures with low error margins; and assessing potential for evolutionary adaptation in long-term management. Unfortunately, despite their importance, all existing methods for estimating Nc have many difficulties, especially requiring independent knowledge or assumptions about demography, including: immigration, emigration, family size and its variance. As a result, even in the IUCN red list, many species are listed despite having unknown population size or trends. Therefore, we need an improved approach. This article introduces ‘DnaDot’, a strong new addition to our armory of census population size estimates, because it is an accurate estimate, with few assumptions. DnaDot is based on mark-release-recapture, but instead of marking, uses pre-existing polymorphisms to divide the population into separate groups. The method uses one sample, minimizing effort, uses no demographic assumptions or data, and does not require genotyping to be accurate enough to identify individuals and kin, which is problematic for other genetic methods especially when degraded field samples are used. DnaDot applies to any kind of variants, from tissue samples, or from noninvasive samples such as hair provided that the researcher can identify species-identity and variants within the species. DnaDot outperformed close competitors on minimal assumptions, and good detectability of marks. Also, in simulations of a wide range of scenarios, DnaDot had superior accuracy and precision, usually meeting the IUCN criterion of ±10 %, which competing methods rarely achieved. Finally, one other method is said to need smaller sample sizes than DnaDot, but only if that method is not required to meet the performance criteria of DnaDot.

Identification of low levels of neutral and functional genetic diversity in South African bontebok (Damaliscus pygargus pygargus).

Bontebok (Damaliscus pygargus pygargus) and blesbok (D. p. phillipsi) are classified as separate sub-species. The blesbok has a widespread distribution throughout South Africa and is listed as least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. Bontebok on the other hand is endemic within the Cape Floristic Region of the Western Cape in South Africa and has been listed as near-threatened species on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Bontebok populations experienced a severe bottleneck and were brought back from the brink of extinction in the 1830s. Currently, the subspecies is threatened by hybridisation with blesbok resulting in fertile offspring. To date, molecular investigations using neutral markers have determined that genetic diversity in pure South African bontebok was significantly lower than in pure blesbok. Here, we investigated genetic diversity in bontebok, blesbok and hybrid individuals using microsatellites and an adaptive marker (toll-like receptor two (TLR2)). The study of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) revealed five mutations in TLR2 in different individuals and subspecies of D. pygargus. This included three non-synonymous and two synonymous mutations. The three amino acid substitution mutations were predicted to have no effect on protein function. Two of the five mutations, one of which resulted in an amino acid substitution, were not present in bontebok. The other three mutations were present to varying frequencies in the three groups. We confirm low adaptive and neutral diversity in bontebok. These mutations provide insights into the genetic diversity and relationships among the two sub-species of D. pygargus and may have implications for their conservation and management.

A standard approach for including climate change responses in IUCN Red List assessments.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List is a central tool for extinction risk monitoring and influences global biodiversity policy and action. But, to be effective, it is crucial that it consistently accounts for each driver of extinction. Climate change is rapidly becoming a key extinction driver, but consideration of climate change information remains challenging for the IUCN. Several methods can be used to predict species' future decline, but they often fail to provide estimates of the symptoms of endangerment used by IUCN. We devised a standardized method to measure climate change impact in terms of change in habitat quality to inform criterion A3 on future population reduction. Using terrestrial nonvolant tetrapods as a case study, we measured this impact as the difference between the current and the future species climatic niche, defined based on current and future bioclimatic variables under alternative model algorithms, dispersal scenarios, emission scenarios, and climate models. Our models identified 171 species (13% out of those analyzed) for which their current red-list category could worsen under criterion A3 if they cannot disperse beyond their current range in the future. Categories for 14 species (1.5%) could worsen if maximum dispersal is possible. Although ours is a simulation exercise and not a formal red-list assessment, our results suggest that considering climate change impacts may reduce misclassification and strengthen consistency and comprehensiveness of IUCN Red List assessments.

Filling knowledge gaps in insect conservation by leveraging genetic data from public archives.

Insect decline has become a growing concern in recent years, with studies showing alarming declines in populations of several taxa. Our knowledge about genetic spatial patterns and evolutionary history of insects still exhibits significant gaps hindering our ability to effectively conserve and manage insect populations and species. Genetic data may provide valuable insights into the diversity and the evolutionary relationships of insects' species and populations. Public repositories, such as GenBank and BOLD, containing vast archives of genetic data with associated metadata, offer an irreplaceable resource for researchers contributing to our understanding of species diversity, population structure and evolutionary relationships. However, there are some issues in using these data, as they are often scattered and may lack accuracy due to inconsistent sampling protocols and incomplete information. In this paper we describe a curated georeferenced database of genetic data collected in GenBank and BOLD, for insects listed in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Italian Red Lists (dragonflies, bees, saproxylic beetles and butterflies). After querying these repositories, we performed quality control and data standardization steps. We created a dataset containing approximately 33 000 mitochondrial sequences and associated metadata about taxonomy, collection localities, geographic coordinates and IUCN Red List status for 1466 species across the four insect lists. We describe the current state of geographical metadata in queried repositories for species listed under different conservation status in the Italian Red Lists to quantify data gaps posing barriers to prioritization of conservation actions. Our curated dataset is available for data repurposing and analysis, enabling researchers to conduct comparative studies. We emphasize the importance of filling knowledge gaps in insect diversity and distribution and highlight the potential of this dataset for promoting other research fields like phylogeography, macrogenetics and conservation strategies. Our database can be downloaded through the Zenodo repository in SQL format. Database URL: https://zenodo.org/records/8375181.

Comprehensive conservation assessments reveal high extinction risks across Atlantic Forest trees.

Biodiversity is declining globally, yet many biodiversity hotspots still lack comprehensive species conservation assessments. Using multiple International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List criteria to evaluate extinction risks and millions of herbarium and forest inventory records, we present automated conservation assessments for all tree species of the Atlantic Forest biodiversity hotspot, including ~1100 heretofore unassessed species. About 65% of all species and 82% of endemic species are classified as threatened. We rediscovered five species classified as Extinct on the IUCN Red List and identified 13 endemics as possibly extinct. Uncertainties in species information had little influence on the assessments, but using fewer Red List criteria severely underestimated threat levels. We suggest that the conservation status of tropical forests worldwide is worse than previously reported.

Exploring DNA barcode for accurate identification of threatened Aconitum L. species from Western Himalaya.

Aconitum species, belonging to Ranunculaceae, have high medicinal importance but due to their overexploitation come under IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) red list. The precise identification of the Aconitum species is equally important because they are used in herbal formulations. The present study aimed to develop an efficient DNA barcode system for the authentic identification of Aconitum species. A set of 92 barcode gene sequences (including 12 developed during the present study and 80 retrieved from NCBI) of 5 Aconitum species (A. heterophyllum, A. vialoceum, A. japonicum, A. napellus, and A. stapfianum) were analyzed using three methods (tree-based, distance-based, and similarity-based) for species discrimination. The PWG-distance method was found most effective for species discrimination. The discrimination rate of PWG- distance ranged from 33.3% (rbcL + trnH-psbA) to 100% (ITS, rbcL + ITS, ITS + trnH-psbA and rbcL + ITS + trnH-psbA). Among DNA barcodes and their combinations, the ITS marker had the highest degree of species discrimination (NJ-40%, PWG-100% and BLAST-40%), followed by trnH-psbA (NJ-20%, PWG-60% and BLAST-20%). ITS also had higher barcoding gap as compared to other individual barcodes and their combinations. Further, we also analyzed six Aconitum species (A. balfourii, A. ferox, A. heterophyllum, A. rotundifolium, A. soongaricum and A. violaceum) existing in Western Himalaya. These species were distinguished clearly through tree-based method using the ITS barcode gene with 100% species resolution. ITS showed the best species discrimination power and was used to develop species-specific barcodes for Aconitum species. DNA barcodes developed during the present study can be used to identify Aconitum species.

Shifts in the size and distribution of marine trophy fishing world records

Abstract The extensive nature of recreational angling makes it difficult to explore trends in global catches. However, trophy fishing world records may provide an insight into recreational fishing pressure on the largest species and size classes. Trophy fishing is promoted and recorded by the International Game Fish Association (IGFA), who manage an 80‐year database on the largest individuals of a species caught – called all‐tackle records (ATRs) – with information on the size and location of each record catch. We analyse these data to explore temporal trends in the size of record‐setting fishes, determine how past and present ATR catches are distributed globally, and examine trends in records for International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) threatened species. The number of ATRs, and the number of species awarded an ATR, have increased significantly over the past 80 years. New records are for increasingly smaller maximum‐sized species of fish, with the average sized record shifting from 167.7 kg in the 1950s to 8.1 kg in the 2010s. ATRs for species listed as threatened (Vulnerable or higher) on the IUCN Red List have also declined by approximately 66% over the past two decades. Records were unevenly distributed around the world but have spread globally over time. Historically, ATRs were concentrated around the coastline of the USA but in recent decades more were reported in areas such as Japan and New Zealand. These data either reflect a shift away from mainly targeting large taxa to targeting a wider variety of smaller species, or that there are now limited larger specimens and so fewer ATRs are being set. Additionally, the scarcity of new records for threatened species appears to support IUCN assessments of their poor stock status. The spread of ATRs suggests a growing pressure on the largest size classes in regions with previously little trophy fishing pressure. We encourage the greater use of catch‐and‐release initiatives and mandatory data collection for all near records to better quantify trophy fishing pressure and ensure sustainable practices.

Considering species functional and phylogenetic rarity in the conservation of fish biodiversity

AbstractAimRare species make substantial contributions to coastal ecosystem functions. Functional rarity (FR) and phylogenetic rarity (PR) are important features for biodiversity conservation. This work aimed to discuss the necessity and reasonableness of conserving fish FR and PR in coastal seas.LocationChina.MethodsBy compiling historical fish investigation data, joint species distribution modelling (JSDM) was applied to model fish communities in coastal China Seas. Biogeographic patterns of FR and PR were explored, and the effectiveness of current MPA networks in terms of match/mismatch with the hotspots of rarity was assessed.ResultsA total of 44 functionally rare species and 22 phylogenetically rare species were identified. Six of these species were both functionally and phylogenetically rare, and only one was listed as endangered on the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Functional rarity hotspots covered 10.27% of the coastal areas, which geographically converged in the southern and eastern coast of Taiwan, the Yangtze River Estuary and the Yellow River Estuary. Phylogenetic rarity hotspots only covered 3.06% of the coastal areas, which were sporadically distributed in the coastal East China Sea, the Bohai Sea and the northern Yellow Sea. Current marine‐protected areas (MPAs) only represented 16.16% of the FR hotspots and 20.48% of the PR hotspots, indicating substantial mismatched areas between the MPAs and the hotspots of FR and PR.Main ConclusionsOnly considering threatened species in conservation practices will omit functionally and phylogenetically rare species because FR and PR are not necessarily correlated with species threat status on the IUCN Red List. Functional rarity hotspots do not necessarily overlap with PR hotspots, and current MPAs mismatch the majority of these areas. We therefore advocate that conservation prioritization and expansion of MPA networks should account for FR and PR both at the species and site levels.

Impact of Climate Change on Rare Species in Arid Environments

Climate Change discusses the long-term metrological conditions and patterns. Besides nature, human development has drastically increased the chances of climate change by burning fossil fuels, including oil, gas, and coal. That resulted in turbulence among humans and plants, and animals. This vulnerability or changing climate dynamics has impacted the plants that are the earth's primary source of life. Egypt is one of the countries where the temperature has risen in the past decades due to climate change. In this country, the plants are affected by the vulnerability of this dynamic change of climate, especially the rare plant species. One of the most essential and abundant tools for determining plant species' biological and conservation activity is the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red list. Two species, namely Micromeria serbaliana and Veronica kaiseri, which are called out as critically endangered species, are evaluated in this study. After evaluation, it was seen that Micromeria serbaliana falls under the category of B1ab (iii) + 2ab (iii) and is termed an Endangered (EN) specie. The same situation is for another targeted species which is Veronica kaiseri, which qualifies as Endangered (EN) under categories B1ab (iii) +2ab (iii). Both species are declining and severely getting fragmented in their fields.

The observation records from whale and dolphin watching inshore of Hualien, eastern Taiwan.

The eastern waters of Taiwan have been lacking baseline and research data for several years. This study was initiated by Kuroshio Ocean Education Foundation (KOEF) in collaboration with the Turumoan whale-watching company since 1998, collecting long-term ecological data for cetaceans in the inshore of Hualien, eastern Taiwan. This dataset includes 10,675 records of cetacean sightings from June 1998 to December 2021. Collection of cetacean sighting records was paused for one year in 2001 due to budgetary reasons. All of the sighting records were collected by whale-watching boat guides that were trained by KOEF. Following a standardised protocol, guides used a handheld GPS device and cetacean sighting record sheets to document information about the cetacean species identification, location, time, number of individuals, the presence of mother-calf pairs and mixed-species groups and other states of each sighting during a whale-watching tour. The collection of citizen-science data during this period has significantly advanced Taiwan's cetacean baseline data in the study area. Additionally, we make data available to the public in the form of citizen-science, making a substantial contribution to the advancement of ocean scientific research. We have published the dataset on Global Biodiversity Information Facility, allowing users around the world to download the dataset. This is currently the largest dataset of cetacean sighting records in Taiwan (last updated on 2023-09-05). We have also recorded several species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List categorised as "Data Deficient" during our survey inshore of Hualien, eastern Taiwan, including Ginkgo-toothed beaked whales (Mesoplodonginkgodens Nishiwaki & Kamiya, 1958), Omura's whales (Balaenopteraomurai Wada, Oishi & Yamada, 2003) and killer whales (Orcinusorca (Linnaeus, 1758)). There are also sperm whales (Physetermacrocephalus Linnaeus, 1758), categorised as "Vulnerable" in the IUCN Red List and false killer whales (Pseudorcacrassidens (Owen, 1846)), categorised as "Near Threatened". This study is also the first and only long-term study that has documented cetaceans in the study area.

Prioritizing the reassessment of data-deficient species on the IUCN Red List.

Despite being central to the implementation of conservation policies, the usefulness of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species is hampered by the 14% of species classified as data-deficient (DD) because information to evaluate these species' extinction risk was lacking when they were last assessed or because assessors did not appropriately account for uncertainty. Robust methods are needed to identify which DD species are more likely to be reclassified in one of the data-sufficient IUCN Red List categories. We devised a reproducible method to help red-list assessors prioritize reassessment of DD species and tested it with 6887 DD species of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, and Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies). For each DD species in these groups, we calculated its probability of being classified in a data-sufficient category if reassessed today from covariates measuring available knowledge (e.g., number of occurrence records or published articles available), knowledge proxies (e.g., remoteness of the range), and species characteristics (e.g., nocturnality); calculated change in such probability since last assessment from the increase in available knowledge (e.g., new occurrence records); and determined whether the species might qualify as threatened based on recent rate of habitat loss determined from global land-cover maps. We identified 1907 species with a probability of being reassessed in a data-sufficient category of >0.5; 624 species for which this probability increased by >0.25 since last assessment; and 77 species that could be reassessed as near threatened or threatened based on habitat loss. Combining these 3 elements, our results provided a list of species likely to be data-sufficient such that the comprehensiveness and representativeness of the IUCN Red List can be improved.

Analyzing National Red List data of East Asia

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List aims to assess global species distribution rather than specific regional or national distribution units. Most conservation activities are carried out on a national or regional basis; therefore, the demand for a national Red List is very high. This study analyzed the current status of the National Red List of six East Asian countries at a national level. A total of 12,462 taxa were evaluated in the Red List of six East Asian countries, in which China and Taiwan had the highest percentage of evaluated taxa, with more than 99% of native plants assessed in the country. In the threat category of the evaluated list, Japan received the highest rating at 82.8%, whereas China and South Korea received the lowest ratings at 10.9%. More than 85% of the taxa assessed on the Red List in six countries were not assessed on the IUCN Red List, and less than 10% were assessed redundantly in threat categories. The reason for the different evaluations of these two Red Lists is considered to be the setting of the distribution range. It is expected that the present study will serve as a foundation for future research.

MADERA: A standardized Pan-Amazonian dataset for tropical timber species.

We compiled and presented a dataset for all timber species reported in the Amazon region from all nine South American Amazonian countries. This was based on official information from every country, as well as from two substantial scientific references. We verified the standard taxonomic names from each individual source, using the Taxonomic Name Resolution Service (TNRS) and considered all Amazonian tree species with diameter at breast height (DBH) ≥10 cm. We also obtained estimates of the current population size for most species from a published approach based on data from 1900 tree inventory plots (1-ha each) distributed across the Amazon region and part from the Amazon Tree Diversity Network (ATDN). We then identified the hyperdominant timber species. In addition, we overlapped our timber species list with data for species that are used for commercial purposes, according to the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) taxa assessment and Red List categories. Finally, we also included IUCN Red List categories based on combined deforestation, and climate change scenarios for these species. Our final Amazonian timber species dataset contains 1112 unique species records, which belong to 337 genera and 72 families from the lowland Amazonian rainforest, with associated information related to population, conservation, and trade status of each species. The authors of this research expect that the information provided will be useful to strengthen the public forestry policies of the Amazon countries, inform ecological studies, as well for forest management purposes. The data are released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

The Integrated Dataset for Occurrence of Odonata Species in South Korea

This study presents an integrated dataset comprising occurrence records for 102 Odonata species in South Korea. The occurrence information of the Odonata species was collected from 10 independent field survey-based datasets, spanning the period from 2014 to 2023 and provided by three agencies: National Institute of Ecology, National Institute of Environmental Research, and Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). In addition to occurrence data, the dataset includes information on the survey year, IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List classification, satellite-derived spectral indices and bioclimatic variables to provide valuable insights into the survey sites and habitats of Odonata species. By integrating diverse dataset, this comprehensive Odonata dataset can contribute to the validation of habitat-related traits, enhances the national checklist information, and facilitates the identification of rarity and potential habitats for Odonata species in South Korea. The integrated Odonata dataset serves as a valuable resource for ongoing Odonata research and conservation efforts in the study area.

Maximizing the potential for living cell banks to contribute to global conservation priorities.

Although cryobanking represents a powerful conservation tool, a lack of standardized information on the species represented in global cryobanks, and inconsistent prioritization of species for future sampling, hinder the conservation potential of cryobanking, resulting in missed conservation opportunities. We analyze the representation of amphibian, bird, mammal, and reptile species within the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Frozen Zoo® living cell collection (as of April 2019) and implement a qualitative framework for the prioritization of species for future sampling. We use global conservation assessment schemes (including the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species™, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the Alliance for Zero Extinction, the EDGE of Existence, and Climate Change Vulnerability), and opportunities for sample acquisition from the global zoo and aquarium community, to identify priority species for cryobanking. We show that 965 species, including 5% of all IUCN Red List "Threatened" amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles, were represented in the collection and that sampling from within existing zoo and aquarium collections could increase representation to 16.6% (by sampling an additional 707 "Threatened" species). High-priority species for future cryobanking efforts include the whooping crane (Grus americana), crested ibis (Nipponia nippon), and Siberian crane (Leucogeranus leucogeranus). Each of these species are listed under every conservation assessment scheme and have ex situ populations available for sampling. We also provide species prioritizations based on subsets of these assessment schemes together with sampling opportunities from the global zoo and aquarium community. We highlight the difficulties in obtaining in situ samples, and encourage the formation of a global cryobanking database together with the establishment of new cryobanks in biodiversity-rich regions.

Endemic Bamboo (Poaceae, Bambusoideae) of the Lesser Sunda Islands

More than 40 species of bamboo were known from the Lesser Sunda Islands (LSI), including several endemic species. Endemic species are often highly specialized, found in limited geographical areas, and vulnerable to extinction if their habitat is destroyed. This study aimed to provide an account of endemic bamboo species on the LSI. Fieldwork involved collecting samples of bamboo in the LSI. Herbarium specimens of bamboo deposited in the Herbarium Bogoriense (BO), collected from the LSI were examined, and endemic LSI species were recorded. The conservation status followed the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list categories and criteria. The conservation status of unassessed species was evaluated using IUCN red list categories and criteria. A spatial analysis was also conducted. Data were analyzed and presented descriptively. There are 10 endemic bamboo species in the LSI, namely Bambusa ooh Widjaja & Astuti from Bali (conservation status: endangered), Chloothamnus reholttumianus (Soenarko) Widjaja from Sumba (vulnerable), C. schmutzii (S.Dransf.) Widjaja from Sumbawa and Flores (near threatened), Dinochloa kostermansiana S.Dransf. from Sumba and Flores (near threatened), D. sepang Widjaja & Astuti from Bali (vulnerable), Fimbribambusa rifaiana Widjaja from Alor (near threatened), Gigantochloa aya Widjaja & Astuti from Bali (vulnerable), G. baliana Widjaja & Astuti from Bali (vulnerable), G. taluh Widjaja & Astuti from Bali (vulnerable), and Schizostachyum purpureum Damayanto & Widjaja from Sumba (data deficient). They can be found at an altitude of 20–1700 m in various habitats, including forests, bamboo forests, villages, botanical gardens, along a road, slopes, valleys, riverbanks, and around a lake.

Genetic Diversity, Morphometric Characterization, and Conservation Reassessment of the Critically Endangered Freshwater Snail, Heleobia atacamensis, in the Atacama Saltpan, Northern Chile.

Evaporitic ecosystems of the Atacama Desert contain a rich endemic fauna, including mollusk species. A recent study performed in the freshwater snail Heleobia atacamensis, endemic to the Atacama Saltpan, revealed a strong interdependence of genetic patterns with climatic fluctuations and landscape physiography. The species is currently listed as Critically Endangered at regional scale and as Data Deficient on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. Here, we studied genetic diversity and demographic history of several populations of the species occurring on a connectivity gradient, including snails from new peripherical localities (Peine and Tilomonte), which were compared with topotype specimens. In addition, we reassessed the conservation status using the IUCN Red List categories and criteria considering species-specific idiosyncrasy. Phylogenetic and phylogeographical analyses indicated that snails from Peine and Tilomonte belong to H. atacamensis. We discovered significant differentiation in shell morphology, which was generally greater in geographically isolated populations. We also inferred six genetic clusters and a demographic expansion congruent with the wet periods that occurred at the end of the Pleistocene. Considering the highest risk category obtained, H. atacamensis was reassessed as Endangered at regional scale. Future conservation plans should consider the genetic assemblages as conservation units.

Genetic diversity and IUCN Red List status.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List is an important and widely used tool for conservation assessment. The IUCN uses information about a species' range, population size, habitat quality and fragmentation levels, and trends in abundance to assess extinction risk. Genetic diversity is not considered, although it affects extinction risk. Declining populations are more strongly affected by genetic drift and higher rates of inbreeding, which can reduce the efficiency of selection, lead to fitness declines, and hinder species' capacities to adapt to environmental change. Given the importance of conserving genetic diversity, attempts have been made to find relationships between red-list status and genetic diversity. Yet, there is still no consensus on whether genetic diversity is captured by the current IUCN Red List categories in a way that is informative for conservation. To assess the predictive power of correlations between genetic diversity and IUCN Red List status in vertebrates, we synthesized previous work and reanalyzed data sets based on 3types of genetic data: mitochondrial DNA, microsatellites, and whole genomes. Consistent with previous work, species with higher extinction risk status tended to have lower genetic diversity for all marker types, but these relationships were weak and varied across taxa. Regardless of marker type, genetic diversity did not accurately identify threatened species for any taxonomic group. Our results indicate that red-list status is not a useful metric for informing species-specific decisions about the protection of genetic diversity and that genetic data cannot be used to identify threat status in the absence of demographic data. Thus, there is a need to develop and assess metrics specifically designed to assess genetic diversity and inform conservation policy, including policies recently adopted by the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.