Open AccessAssessing extinction risk from geographic distribution data in Neotropical freshwater fishes
Author(s) -
Victor Alberto Tagliacollo,
Fernando César Paiva Dagosta,
Mário de Pinna,
Roberto Esser dos Reis,
James S. Albert
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
neotropical ichthyology/neotropical ichthyology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.593
H-Index - 40
eISSN - 1982-0224
pISSN - 1679-6225
DOI - 10.1590/1982-0224-2021-0079
Subject(s) - iucn red list , threatened species , conservation dependent species , near threatened species , data deficient , biology , conservation status , ecology , extinction (optical mineralogy) , endangered species , iucn protected area categories , habitat , paleontology
The IUCN Red List (RL) provides high-quality conservation assessments for individual species, yet the rate and scale of environmental deterioration globally challenges the conservation community to develop expedited methods for risk assessment. Here we compare threat assessments for 3,001 species of Neotropical freshwater fishes (NFF) in the IUCN–RL using readily accessible data types as proxies for extinction risk: geographic range, elevation, and species publication date. Furthermore, using geographic and taxonomic data alone, we generated preliminary conservation assessments for 2,334 NFF species currently awaiting IUCN assessment, identifying an additional 671 NFF species as potentially threatened. This number of potentially threatened species represents an increase of 59% over the number of species currently assigned to threat categories by the IUCN–RL. These results substantially expand the number of threatened NFF species from 422 currently on the IUCN RL to 1,093 species as threatened or potentially threatened, representing about 18% of all NFF species. Extinction risk is greater in species with smaller geographic ranges, which inhabit upland rivers, and which were described more recently. We propose the Central and Southern Andes, and Eastern Guiana Shield as priorities in the upcoming IUCN RL assessment of NFF species conservation risk.