Recent research efforts have significantly advanced our knowledge on Asian freshwater mussel (Bivalvia: Unionida) diversity and distribution. Here we provide a modern consensus of the diversity, ...biogeography and conservation of Unionida in the region comprising East and Southeast Asia (excluding Wallacea) and Asian Russia. A data review confirmed the presence of 228 native and 3 non-native Unionida (98% Unionidae, 2% Margaritiferidae), rendering the region a global hotspot of freshwater mussel diversity. Species richness was highest in China (particularly Yangtze basin) in absolute numbers and Cambodia when correcting for country area, and decreased gradually towards the south and steeply towards the north and east. Six of the seven unionid subfamilies are native to the region, with species richness peaking in Southeast Asia for Rectidentinae, Gonideinae, Parreysiinae and Modellnaiinae, China for Anodontinae and Unioninae, and Asian Russia for Margaritiferidae. Conservation status and data collected after 1980 were not available for 61 and 24% of species, respectively. Dams, deforestation and pollution are likely the major threats to mussels in the region, though data in this respect are scarce. The Philippines, Laos, Indonesia, Myanmar and Malaysia are among the countries with the poorest data availability and urgently require research.
Understanding how biological and environmental factors interactively shape the global distribution of plant and animal genetic diversity is fundamental to biodiversity conservation. Genetic diversity ...measured in local populations (GD
) is correspondingly assumed representative for population fitness and eco-evolutionary dynamics. For 8356 populations across the globe, we report that plants systematically display much lower GD
than animals, and that life history traits shape GD
patterns both directly (animal longevity and size), and indirectly by mediating core-periphery patterns (animal fecundity and plant dispersal). Particularly in some plant groups, peripheral populations can sustain similar GD
as core populations, emphasizing their potential conservation value. We further find surprisingly weak support for general latitudinal GD
trends. Finally, contemporary rather than past climate contributes to the spatial distribution of GD
, suggesting that contemporary environmental changes affect global patterns of GD
. Our findings generate new perspectives for the conservation of genetic resources at worldwide and taxonomic-wide scales.
Despite the remarkable growth of the global market for robotics, robotic monitoring of habitats is still an understudied topic. This is true, among others, for the species-rich EU Annex I habitat ..."6210 - Semi-natural grasslands and scrubland facies on calcareous substrates". This habitat is typically surveyed by human operators. In this work, we present a dataset concerning relevés performed through the quadrupedal robot ANYmal C. The dataset contains information from three plots, which include the robot state, videos, and images acquired to assess the habitat conservation status. Additionally, a collection of videos and pictures about two typical and one early warning species of habitat 6210 is also presented. This database is publicly available in the provided Zenodo repository and will aid researchers in several fields. Robot state information can be used by engineers to validate their algorithms, while data gathered by the robot can be used to design new methodologies and new metrics to assess the habitat conservation status or train/test classifiers (e.g. neural networks) for plant classification.
The Lakshadweep Islands are well-known for their abundant fishery resources. Present study primarily focused on the systematic representation of IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) ...Red Listed marine finfish landings of Chetlat Island of Lakshadweep archipelago (India). Monthly collections were carried out from September 2019 to February 2020 from the study area. A list of finfishes along with their scientific name, common name, family, and present conservation status was prepared. As per the IUCN Red List, out of 41 fish species identified, one species is ‘Endangered’ (EN), two species are ‘Near Threatened’ (NT), four species are ‘Vulnerable’ (VU), one species ‘Data Deficient’ (DD), 29 species ‘Least Concern’ (LC), and four species are ‘Not Evaluated’ (NE) categories. Information on the conservation status of fishes plays a significant role in fisheries science since it forms the basis for managing marine fishery resources.
With the biodiversity crisis continuing unchecked, we need to establish levels and drivers of extinction risk, and reassessments over time, to effectively allocate conservation resources and track ...progress towards global conservation targets. Given that threat appears particularly high in freshwaters, we assessed the extinction risk of 1428 randomly selected freshwater molluscs using the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria, as part of the Sampled Red List Index project. We show that close to one-third of species in our sample are estimated to be threatened with extinction, with highest levels of threat in the Nearctic, Palearctic and Australasia and among gastropods. Threat levels were higher in lotic than lentic systems. Pollution (chemical and physical) and the modification of natural systems (e.g. through damming and water abstraction) were the most frequently reported threats to freshwater molluscs, with some regional variation. Given that we found little spatial congruence between species richness patterns of freshwater molluscs and other freshwater taxa, apart from crayfish, new additional conservation priority areas emerged from our study. We discuss the implications of our findings for freshwater mollusc conservation, the adequacy of a sampled approach and important next steps to estimate trends in freshwater mollusc extinction risk over time.
Lack of demographic data for most of the world's threatened species is a widespread problem that precludes viability-based status assessments for species conservation. A commonly suggested solution ...is to use data from species that are closely related or biologically similar to the focal species. This approach assumes similar species and populations of the same species have similar demographic rates, an assumption that has yet to be thoroughly tested. We constructed a Bayesian hierarchical model with data on 425 plant species to predict demographic rates (intrinsic rate of population growth, recruit survival, juvenile survival, adult survival, and fecundity) based on biological traits and phylogenetic relatedness. Generally, we found small effects of species-level traits (except woody polycarpic species tended to have high adult survival rates that increased with plant height) and a weak phylogenetic signal for 4 of the 5 demographic parameters examined. Patterns were stronger in adult survival and fecundity than other demographic rates; however, the unexplained variances at both the species and population levels were high for all demographic rates. For species lacking demographic data, our model produced large, often inaccurate, prediction intervals that may not be useful in a management context. Ourfindings do not support the assumption that biologically similar or closely related species have similar demographic rates and provide further evidence that direct monitoring of focal species and populations is necessary for informing conservation status assessments. La falta de datos demográficos para la mayoría de las especies amenazadas del mundo es un problema ampliamente distribuido que descarta las evaluaciones de estado basadas en la viabilidad para la conservación de las especies. Una sugerencia común es el uso de datos de otras especies que están relacionadas de manera cercana o que son similares biológicamente a la especiefocal. Esta estrategia asume que las especies similares y poblaciones de la misma especie tienen tasas demográficas similares, una suposición que aún no ha sido probada minuciosamente. Construimos un modelo bayesiano de jerarquías con datos de 425 especies de plantas para predecir las tasas demográficas (tasa intrínseca de crecimiento poblacional, supervivencia de reclutas, supervivencia de juveniles, supervivencia de adultos, y fecundidad) con base en los rasgos biológicos y las relacionesfilogenéticas. En general, encontramos efectos menores de las características a nivel de especie (excepto en las especies leñosas policárpicas, que tuvieron la tendencia de una tasa alta de supervivencia en adultos que incrementaba con la altura de la planta) y una señal filogenética débil para cuatro de los cinco parámetros demográficos que se examinaron. Los patrones fueron más fuertes en la supervivencia de adultos y en la fecundidad que en otras tasas demográficas; sin embargo, las varianzas sin explicación a nivel de especie y de población fueron altas para todas las tasas demográficas. Nuestro modelo produjo intervalos de predicción grandes, con frecuencia erróneos, para las especies que carecen de datos demográficos, lo cual puede que no sea útil en un contexto de manejo. Nuestros resultados no apoyan la suposición de que las especies relacionadas de manera cercana o similares biológicamente tienen tasas demográficas similares y proporcionan mayor evidencia de que el monitoreo directo de las especies y poblaciones focales es necesario para informar a las evaluaciones de estado de conservación. 世界上的受胁迫物种大多缺少种群动态数据，这个普遍存在的问题妨碍了基于种群生存力的物种保护瀕 危状态评估。为解决这个问题, 一般会建议使用系统发育上相近或是生物学特性相似的其它物种的数据。这种 方法假定相似物种或同一物种的种群之间有相似的种群动态特征，然而这个假设目前尚未得到彻底的检验。本 研究中，我们基于生物字性状和糸统发胥夭糸，用425柙植物的奴据构建f ー个災旰斯层次:模型来预测柙群功恐 参数辦群内禀增长率、补充率、幼苗存活率、成树存活率和繁殖力）。总体上，我们发现物种水平的性状影响 不大( 除了木本多心皮植物随植株高度増加，成树存活率倾向于増加)，我们检验的五个种群动态参数中有四个 存在较弱的系统发育信号。种群动态参数中成树存活率和繁殖力的规律最为明显,•然面，物种水平和种群水平的 种群动态参数的无法解释的变异都很大。对于缺乏种群动态数据的物种，我们的模型得到了较大且往往不够准 确的而预测区间，而这对管理来说可能没有用处。我们的研究结果并不支持生物学上相似或系统发育关系近的 物种的种群动态也相似的假设，却提供了进ー步证据证明对目标物种和种群的直接监测是物种保护状况评估的 身霜条件。
New localities and updated distribution of two endemic Rafflesia R.Br. (Rafflesiaceae) species from Mount Leuser National Park, Sumatra namely Rafflesia lawangensis Mat-Salleh, Mahyuni & Susatya and ...Rafflesia micropylora Meijer are reported. Rafflesia lawangensis is formerly known only from its type locality in Tualang Gepang, Bukit Lawang area (North Sumatra province), while R. micropylora is found in several localities including Sungai Jernih, Lokop, Ketambe, Lawe Mamas, and Kuala Kompas (Aceh province). Here, we report a new locality of R. lawangensis in Tangkahan (North Sumatra province) about 10 km from its type locality, and two new localities of R. micropylora in Batu Katak and in Cinta Raja (North Sumatra province). We also update the conservation status of both Rafflesia species and assess R. lawangensis as Critically Endangered and R. micropylora as Endangered. In this study, a complete distribution map of both species, habitat characteristics, and an identification key are also provided to be used for conservation managers.
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.
Australia is a global hotspot of reptile diversity, hosting ~10% of the world's squamate (snake and lizard) species. Yet the conservation status of the Australian squamate fauna has not been assessed ...for >25 years; a period during which the described fauna has risen by ~40%. Here we provide the first comprehensive conservation assessment of Australian terrestrial squamates using IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria. Most (86.4%; n = 819/948) Australian squamates were categorised as Least Concern, 4.5% were Data Deficient, and 7.1% (range 6.8%–11.3%, depending on the treatment of Data Deficient species) were threatened (3.0% Vulnerable, 2.7% Endangered, 1.1% Critically Endangered). This level of threat is low relative to the global average (~18%). One species (Emoia nativitatis) was assessed as Extinct, and two species (Lepidodactylus listeri and Cryptoblepharus egeriae) are considered Extinct in the Wild: all three were endemic to Christmas Island. Most (75.1%) threat assessments were based on geographic range attributes, due to limited data on population trends or relevant proxies. Agriculture, fire, and invasive species were the threats that affected the most species, and there was substantial geographic variation in the number of species affected by each threat. Threatened species richness peaked on islands, in the Southern Alps, and across northern Australia. Data deficiency was greatest in northern Australia and in coastal Queensland. Approximately one-in-five threatened species were not represented in a single protected area. Our analyses shed light on the species, regions, and threats in most urgent need of conservation intervention.
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