National and regional Red Lists – global coverage, gaps, and delivering the National Red List database

Posted on Aug 10, 2016 Network News | Comments Off on National and regional Red Lists – global coverage, gaps, and delivering the National Red List database

National and regional Red Lists – global coverage, gaps, and delivering the National Red List database

It’s been a while since we last blogged – but we have been busy uploading more and more data onto our National Red List database. At the same time, so many more Red List publications have made their way into our library section. So… what’s the latest status on National and Regional Red Lists? Well, end of April, we compiled this year’s update on what we know about National Red Lists – a document we submitted to our partners at the IUCN, CBD and which we would like to share with you all… so if you wondered about how we are doing in achieving global coverage of National Red Lists, look no further. Enjoy!

National and regional Red Lists – global coverage, gaps in coverage and delivering the National Red List database

Following the CBD Secretariat’s call to Parties in May 2014 for information on National Red List data, large numbers of Regional, National and Sub-national Red Lists were submitted and passed on to the National Red List project for inclusion into the National Red List database. As a result, we have now recorded 565 national-level Red Lists from 119 countries. Some of these 565 national Red Lists are currently in the final stages of completion. Additionally, there are another 163 red lists at sub-national level, from 22 countries such as Germany, Russia, Spain etc. where red lists are collated at the level of sub-national entities (e.g. each federal state in Germany). Completing our knowledge on sub-global red lists are 98 regional red lists, spanning a number of countries each.

In the following, we only consider national-level red lists. Of these, 565 national-level Red Lists, 539 have been completed (the remainder still being work in progress). Of these 539, 242 have been published since 2006 and are thus considered up-to-date: 126 out of 242 are using the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria system for application at regional level, with another four lists using a modified IUCN system; only fourteen red lists do not use the IUCN system, although for 95 of up-to-date National Red Lists, we still need to document the Red List criterion system used. This is because these lists are in languages which we have not yet sufficiently translated due to a lack of manpower and resources for the project. Figure 1 illustrates the taxonomic spread of the 242 up-to-date national-level Red Lists, and shows that, unlike for the global IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, plants and invertebrates are by far the most commonly red listed taxa. However, the most commonly carried out red lists consider multiple taxon groups.

Taxonomic coverage of national-level Red Lists conducted since 2006 (and thus considered to be up-to-date) (N=242 Red Lists)

Figure 1. Taxonomic coverage of national-level Red Lists conducted since 2006 (and thus considered to be up-to-date) (N=242 Red Lists)

While we have tried to incorporate all the submitted data into our databases, there are still some red lists which require processing and upload into our searchable National and Regional Red List database (hereafter termed “NRL database”). To put into perspective the extensive job that needs to be carried out on the National Red List website’s species database, of all known 565 national-level Red Lists, 417 are not yet uploaded into the species assessments database, due to limited funds, staff time constraints, and issues of accessibility to and interpretation/translation of data. However, over the past year (since April 2015), we have uploaded 80,648 species assessments into the NRL database, from 35 regions, countries and sub-national entities. As a result, the NRLdatabase now comprises 217,103 species assessments from 78 countries, including a number of sub-national assessments. Of the 217,103 assessments, 135,536 assessments (62.4%) use the IUCN Categories and Criteria, 22,824 (10.5%) a modified version of the IUCN Criteria, and 58,741 (27.1%) a non-IUCN criteria system. In terms of taxonomic coverage, most assessments are of plants (48%) and invertebrates (29%; Figure 2), in stark contrast to species coverage on the global IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (Table 1). Similarly, coverage of unique species names on the NRL database suggests that this may become an important tool in sourcing data for those species groups, namely plants and invertebrates, which are notoriously under-represented on the global IUCN Red List. However, in order to determine the number of unique species held in the NRL database, we need to develop a taxonomic backbone for the database and carry out extensive taxonomy matching to eradicate synonyms and subspecies etc. being misrepresented as species in our database. This in turn requires technical and financial capacity.

Figure 2. Taxonomic coverage of red list assessments in the National Red List database (www.nationalredlist.org) (n = 217,103 assessments)

Figure 2. Taxonomic coverage of red list assessments in the National Red List database (www.nationalredlist.org) (n = 217,103 assessments)

As far as we know, 43 countries out of the 119 countries with National Red Lists have carried out repeat assessments (36%). However, we are aware that additional countries have developed Red List Indices which rely on repeat assessments of taxa and distinguishing genuine from non-genuine changes, so that this percentage is likely to be higher in reality. Additional capacity is needed to incorporate these data into the NRL database. Figure 3 shows the currently known global coverage of national-level Red Lists for different taxon groups (as of October 2014 – we are currently in the process of updating the maps), and highlights areas where National Red Lists are up to date (dark red) and out-of-date (light red).

 

Figure 3. Global National Red List coverage by taxon group: A – Amphibians; B- Birds; C – Fish; D – Fungi & lichens; E – Invertebrates; F – Mammals; G – Non-vascular plants; H – Vascular plants; I – Reptiles. Maps highlight areas where National Red Lists are up to date (dark red) and out-of-date (light red); grey denotes no National Red List exists which covers the taxon group in question

Figure 3. Global National Red List coverage by taxon group: A – Amphibians; B- Birds; C – Fish; D – Fungi & lichens; E – Invertebrates; F – Mammals; G – Non-vascular plants; H – Vascular plants; I – Reptiles. Maps highlight areas where National Red Lists are up to date (dark red) and out-of-date (light red); grey denotes no National Red List exists which covers the taxon group in question

 

 

Table 1. Species coverage of National Red Lists versus the global IUCN Red List

 

 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species Number of NRL assessments in NRL database1 Number of unique names in NRL database2
Vertebrates 41,517 26,854 11,666
Mammals 5,502 5,023 1,829
Birds 10,424 9,819 2,697
Reptiles 4,669 3,328 2,236
Amphibians 6,460 2,350 1,675
Fish 14,462 5,327 3,226
Invertebrates 17,516 63,182 28,646
Insects 5,573 48,316 19,479
Crustaceans 3,168 2,562 1,359
Arachnids 210 4,609 2,677
Other Arthropods unknown 327 289
Molluscs 7,216 5,670 3,505
Corals 862 192 116
Worms unknown 562 449
Plants 20,755 102,273 60,089
Mosses 102 10,736 2,776
Ferns & allies 365 7,334 2,898
Gymnosperms 1,011 659 471
Flowering plants 19,206 80,476 52,843
Green algae 13 2,598 863
Red algae 58 436 226
Fungi & protists3 49 23,062 7,260

Notes:

1These are number of overall assessments, not number of unique species

2These are only numbers of unique names in the NRL database; we need to match taxonomy and develop an overriding taxonomic backbone to our database in order to be able to calculate how many unique species this refers to, as the presence of synonyms, subspecies etc is likely to inflate the number of unique names held in the database at the moment.

3”Fungi & protists” still need to be assigned to subcategories (lichens, mushrooms, brown algae, etc)