scholarly journals Comparing the IUCN’s EICAT and Red List to improve assessments of the impact of biological invasions

NeoBiota ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 509-523
Author(s):  
Dewidine Van der Colff ◽  
Sabrina Kumschick ◽  
Wendy Foden ◽  
John R. U. Wilson

The IUCN recommends the use of two distinct schemes to assess the impacts of biological invasions on biodiversity at the species level. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (Red List) categorises native species based on their risk of extinction. Such assessments evaluate the extent to which different pressures, including alien species, threaten native species. The much newer IUCN Environmental Impact Classification for Alien Taxa (EICAT) categorises alien species on the degree to which they have impacted native species. Conceptually, the schemes are related. One would expect that: 1) if a native species is assessed as threatened under the Red List due to the impacts of alien species, then at least one alien species involved should be classified as harmful under EICAT; and 2) if an alien species is assessed as harmful under EICAT, then at least one native species impacted should be assessed as threatened by alien species under the Red List. Here we test this by comparing the impacts of alien gastropods, assessed using EICAT, to the impact on native species as assessed based on the Red List. We found a weak positive correlation, but it is clear there is not a simple one-to-one relationship. We hypothesise that the relationship between EICAT and the Red List statuses will follow one of three forms: i) the EICAT status of an alien species is closely correlated to the Red List status of the impacted native species; ii) the alien species is classed as ‘harmful’ under EICAT, but it does not threaten the native species with extinction as per the Red List (for example, the impacted native species is still widespread or abundant despite significant negative impacts from the alien species); or iii) the native species is classified as threatened under the Red List regardless of the impacts of the alien species (threatened species are impacted by other pressures with alien species potentially a passenger and not a driver of change). We conclude that the two schemes are complementary rather than equivalent, and provide some recommendations for how categorisations and data can be used in concert.

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Sri Turni Hartati ◽  
Wudianto Wudianto ◽  
Lilis Sadiyah

<p>Ikan banggai cardinal atau disingkat BCF adalah jenis ikan hias tropis endemik yang hanya hidup secara alami di perairan sekitar Kepulauan Banggai. Dampak tekanan penangkapan terhadap populasi BCF dewasa ini cukup signifikan, yaitu terjadinya gejala overfishing telah nampak pada hampir semua lokasi penangkapan. Status BCF pada saat ini dalam Red List IUCN tergolong Threatened Species. Tulisan ini menyajikan pengelolaan sumber daya BCF dengan mengkaji status pemanfaatan, dinamika populasi, biologi dan habitatnya. Data yang digunakan adalah hasil penelitian pada tahun 2011, melalui validasi data di lapangan dan telaah dari hasil-hasil penelitian sebelumnya. Hasil tangkapan BCF relatif tinggi pada kisaran tahun 1999 – 2007, mencapai 1,4 juta ekor pada tahun 2000, kemudian menurun drastis pada tahun 2008 – 2010, hanya berkisar 250.000 – 350.000 ekor/tahun. Upaya pengelolaan BCF telah dilakukan sejak tahun 2005, baik oleh pemerintah pusat, pemerintah daerah, maupun melalui kearifan lokal yang ada. Implementasi kebijakan pengelolaan BCF di perairan Kepulauan Banggai berdasarkan kajian hasil penelitian adalah jumlah kuota BCF yang boleh ditangkap sebanyak 220.615 ekor/tahun dengan ukuran minimal 4,8 cm (FL) dan tidak dalam kondisi mengerami telurnya. Mengingat umur dari BCF berkisar antara 2-4 tahun, maka kuota dapat diberlakukan selama jangka waktu 3 tahun. Monitoring data hasil tangkapan BCF melalui kegiatan enumerasi harus tetap dilanjutkan sebagai bahan evalusi status stok sumberdaya tersebut.</p><p>Banggai cardinal fish (BCF) is an endemic tropical ornamental fish that only inhabits naturally in the Banggai Islands. The impact of fishing pressure on the BCF population is quite significant, i.e. overfishing is occurring in almost all fishing areas. BCF is listed in the IUCN Red List as Threatened Species group. This paper presents the fisheries management for BCF by assessing the status of its utilization, population dynamic, biology and habitat. The data analyzed in this paper were conducted in 2011, through data validation in the field and review on some previous studies. The catch production of BCF was relatively high between 1999 and 2007, reached 1.4 million fish in 2000, followed by a significant decrease from 250.000 in 2008 to 350.000 in 2010. Fisheries management measures for BCF have been initiated since 2005, either by central or local governments, or the available local wisdom. The results of study recommend catch quota for BCF, that maintain the sustainability of the fish stock, is 220.615 fish/year, with the minimum size is 4.8 cm FL and not in the condition of incubating eggs. Since the age of BCF is between 2-4 years old, the recommendation could be implemented for 3 years, and data monitoring through enumeration could be continued for evaluation of its stock status.</p>


2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (15) ◽  
pp. 4033-4038 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holly P. Jones ◽  
Nick D. Holmes ◽  
Stuart H. M. Butchart ◽  
Bernie R. Tershy ◽  
Peter J. Kappes ◽  
...  

More than US$21 billion is spent annually on biodiversity conservation. Despite their importance for preventing or slowing extinctions and preserving biodiversity, conservation interventions are rarely assessed systematically for their global impact. Islands house a disproportionately higher amount of biodiversity compared with mainlands, much of which is highly threatened with extinction. Indeed, island species make up nearly two-thirds of recent extinctions. Islands therefore are critical targets of conservation. We used an extensive literature and database review paired with expert interviews to estimate the global benefits of an increasingly used conservation action to stem biodiversity loss: eradication of invasive mammals on islands. We found 236 native terrestrial insular faunal species (596 populations) that benefitted through positive demographic and/or distributional responses from 251 eradications of invasive mammals on 181 islands. Seven native species (eight populations) were negatively impacted by invasive mammal eradication. Four threatened species had their International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List extinction-risk categories reduced as a direct result of invasive mammal eradication, and no species moved to a higher extinction-risk category. We predict that 107 highly threatened birds, mammals, and reptiles on the IUCN Red List—6% of all these highly threatened species—likely have benefitted from invasive mammal eradications on islands. Because monitoring of eradication outcomes is sporadic and limited, the impacts of global eradications are likely greater than we report here. Our results highlight the importance of invasive mammal eradication on islands for protecting the world's most imperiled fauna.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Kiesel ◽  
Tinh Vu ◽  
Karan Kakouei ◽  
Domisch Sami ◽  
Fengzhi He ◽  
...  

&lt;p&gt;Freshwater ecosystems have higher proportions of extinct and threatened species than terrestrial and marine ecosystems, with populations of vertebrates declined by 83% between 1970 and 2018. The pressing question is: what are the main drivers for this decline? Here we investigate the reasons for the loss of freshwater biodiversity using globally available gridded datasets at 0.5&amp;#176; spatial resolution on precipitation and temperature, land cover and land use, water use and dams as well as daily hydrological streamflow simulations from the ISIMIP initiative.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Across the past 50 years, we constructed annual change maps of the environmental variables along the global river networks and calculated time-variant indicators of hydrologic alteration (IHA) to depict hydrological change. We then calculated normalized indicators (e.g. proportion of threatened species) describing the current freshwater biodiversity status through species data aggregation of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN Red List) categories.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;By applying classification and regression trees (CART), we highlight the importance of environmental- and hydrological change on the freshwater biodiversity status based on IUCN Red List assessments on each grid cell globally. Our results reveal a large-scale spatial classification of the environmental variables and their potential impact on the ongoing freshwater biodiversity crisis.&lt;/p&gt;


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 632-643 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Betts ◽  
Richard P. Young ◽  
Craig Hilton‐Taylor ◽  
Michael Hoffmann ◽  
Jon Paul Rodríguez ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro J. Sosa ◽  
Nadia L. Jiménez ◽  
Ana C. Faltlhauser ◽  
Tomás Righetti ◽  
Fernando Mc Kay ◽  
...  

AbstractEnvironmental education seeks to foster an appreciation for nature and the impact of humans on it while introducing citizens to scientific thinking. Biological invasions affect different aspects of life on earth and mandate urgent management actions. Education and public awareness are strongly recommended for successful prevention and management of invasive alien species (IAS). This work presents a study on knowledge and perception of the educational community of Argentina about native species and IAS. We designed an on-line semi-structured questionnaire to examine perception of the environment, recognition of native species and IAS and awareness about biological invasions. Educators recognised an important number of biotic components, mostly represented by trees, birds and mammals. Recognition of native species and IAS, and awareness of biological invasions were different between NST (Natural Science Teachers) and non-NST. Respondents had different performances when they were exposed to recognising native species though written names or photographs. Out of 532 respondents, 56% knew what biological invasions are, 21% answered “Maybe” and 23% had never heard about them. We need to foster capacity-building and encourage a two-way communication between educators and scientists, formally and informally, to engage the participation of the whole society in recognition, prevention and management of IAS.


2021 ◽  
pp. 135406882110119
Author(s):  
Matthew Polacko

Previous research into the relationship between income inequality and turnout inequality has produced mixed results, as consensus is lacking whether inequality reduces turnout for all income groups, low-income earners, or no one. Therefore, this paper builds on this literature by introducing supply-side logic, through the first individual-level test of the impact that income inequality (moderated by policy manifesto positions) has on turnout. It does so through multilevel logistic regressions utilizing mixed effects, on a sample of 30 advanced democracies in 102 elections from 1996 to 2016. It finds that higher levels of income inequality significantly reduce turnout and widen the turnout gap between rich and poor. However, it also finds that when party systems are more polarized, low-income earners are mobilized the greatest extent coupled with higher inequality, resulting in a significantly reduced income gap in turnout. The findings magnify the negative impacts income inequality can exert on political behavior and contribute to the study of policy offerings as a key moderating mechanism in the relationship.


2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beth A. Polidoro ◽  
Cristiane T. Elfes ◽  
Jonnell C. Sanciangco ◽  
Helen Pippard ◽  
Kent E. Carpenter

Given the economic and cultural dependence on the marine environment in Oceania and a rapidly expanding human population, many marine species populations are in decline and may be vulnerable to extinction from a number of local and regional threats. IUCN Red List assessments, a widely used system for quantifying threats to species and assessing species extinction risk, have been completed for 1190 marine species in Oceania to date, including all known species of corals, mangroves, seagrasses, sea snakes, marine mammals, sea birds, sea turtles, sharks, and rays present in Oceania, plus all species in five important perciform fish groups. Many of the species in these groups are threatened by the modification or destruction of coastal habitats, overfishing from direct or indirect exploitation, pollution, and other ecological or environmental changes associated with climate change. Spatial analyses of threatened species highlight priority areas for both site- and species-specific conservation action. Although increased knowledge and use of newly available IUCN Red List assessments for marine species can greatly improve conservation priorities for marine species in Oceania, many important fish groups are still in urgent need of assessment.


Oryx ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryszard Z. Oleksy ◽  
Charles L. Ayady ◽  
Vikash Tatayah ◽  
Carl Jones ◽  
Jérémy S.P. Froidevaux ◽  
...  

Abstract The endemic Mauritian flying fox Pteropus niger is perceived to be a major fruit pest. Lobbying of the Government of Mauritius by fruit growers to control the flying fox population resulted in national culls in 2015 and 2016, with a further cull scheduled for 2018. A loss of c. 38,318 individuals has been reported and the species is now categorized as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. However, until now there were no robust data available on damage to orchards caused by bats. During October 2015–February 2016 we monitored four major lychee Litchi chinensis and one mango (Mangifera spp.) orchard, and also assessed 10 individual longan Dimocarpus longan trees. Bats and introduced birds caused major damage to fruit, with 7–76% fruit loss (including natural fall and losses from fungal damage) per tree. Bats caused more damage to taller lychee trees (> 6 m high) than to smaller ones, whereas bird damage was independent of tree height. Bats damaged more fruit than birds in tall lychee trees, although this trend was reversed in small trees. Use of nets on fruiting trees can result in as much as a 23-fold reduction in the damage caused by bats if nets are applied correctly. There is still a need to monitor orchards over several seasons and to test non-lethal bat deterrence methods more widely.


Oryx ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Haissa de Abreu Caitano ◽  
Valquíria Ferreira Dutra ◽  
Rodrigo Theófilo Valadares ◽  
Luana Silva Braucks Calazans

Abstract Cactaceae is one of the most threatened plant families, in part as a result of the illegal extraction of plants for ornamental use. However, reports of the seizure and reintroduction of cacti are scarce and do not include species of Melocactus, the genus of Cactaceae in Brazil that has the highest number of threatened species. The coroa-de-frade Melocactus violaceus is endemic to Brazil and categorized as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. We report the seizure of 37 individuals of coroa-de-frade extracted illegally from their natural habitat, the results of their reintroduction to Paulo César Vinha State Park, in Espírito Santo state, Brazil, and provide information for environmental monitoring agencies regarding how to proceed in seizure cases, with the goal of minimizing the impacts of this illegal practice on the species. After seizure, 25 individuals were cultivated in a greenhouse and 12 were reintroduced in restinga, the natural area of occurrence of the species. After 6 months, survival was 76% for those individuals cultivated in the greenhouse and 84% for those planted in restinga, showing that rapid reintroduction of species with ornamental appeal, preferentially in their natural habitat, can reduce the impacts of illegal extraction. This reintroduction protocol can be used by managers of conservation units, contributing to the maintenance of threatened cactus species in their natural habitat.


Author(s):  
Andersonn Silveira Prestes

The establishment and spread of exotic species is a contemporary major concern. Alien species may become invasive in their new habitat, leading to both/either environmental and/or economic impacts. I briefly reviewed the literature in the last decade about the relationship of exotic species and native communities. I identified that professionals usually approach the subject in two main points of view: (1) researchers tend to point out the impacts of alien species on entire communities, evaluating if the relationship is positive, negative or neutral; (2) they focus on the eco-evolutionary processes involved in the introductions, the dynamics of invasion, and individual study cases. When evaluating the response of introductions to entire communities, evidence seems to be ambiguous and may support positive, negative or neutral relationship, especially depending on the scale approached. The unique eco-evolutionary pathways of each introduction may be a great shortcoming in the searching for generalities. On the other hand, advances have been made in understanding the dynamics of invasion on different lineages through a more selective/individualized approach. I suggest that the dynamics of invasion might be studied through a perspective in which different eco-evolutionary processes, levels of organization (from gene to entire communities), the history of the organism(s) and time are taken into account. Individual cases might be compared in attempt to understand how the relationship exotic and native works and in the search for generalities.


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