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El Estatus de Conservación como un Indicador de Tendencias en Biodiversidad: Recomendaciones de una Década de Enlistar Especies en Riesgo en Columbia Británica
Author(s) -
QUAYLE JAMES F.,
RAMSAY LEAH R.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
conservation biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.2
H-Index - 222
eISSN - 1523-1739
pISSN - 0888-8892
DOI - 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2005.00083.x
Subject(s) - subspecies , conservation status , biodiversity , taxon , geography , iucn red list , baseline (sea) , ecology , endangered species , umbrella species , global biodiversity , environmental resource management , biology , fishery , environmental science , habitat
Species conservation status is commonly used as a broad‐scale indicator of the state of biological diversity. To learn about its value for tracking trends, we examined provincial lists of terrestrial vertebrate species and subspecies at risk in British Columbia, Canada, for 1992 and 2002 to see whether changes in these lists reflected changes in the status of the taxa they represent. Examination of the case histories of individual species and subspecies showed that 65% of additions and deletions to the British Columbia Red List were the result of improvement in knowledge of species status, changes in assessment procedures, and refinements in taxonomy rather than actual changes in a species' status. Comparison to an alternate set of rank scores provided by NatureServe for taxa that appeared on both 1992 and 2002 British Columbia Red Lists revealed changes in status that were not reflected by movement from the list. Estimates of historical conservation status for species on the 1992 British Columbia Red List demonstrated ambiguity around the natural baseline with regard to tracking changes in list composition over time. We discourage the continued use of indicators based solely on conservation status as a means of tracking biodiversity. Instead we recommend advancing strategic indicators around species at risk based on long‐term monitoring data, deliberate and explicitly stated baselines, and consistent methods of conservation ranking.