Article: Biologists Map Mammal Extinction Hot Spots

Biologists Map Mammal Extinction Hot Spots

Modern conservation efforts focus on saving as much biodiversity as
possible--and preventing living species from going the way of the dodo.
Already, roughly 10 percent of the world's land falls inside of protected
reserves. But new research highlights the mammals most at risk of
disappearing in the near future even if they are unthreatened now, and the
majority fall outside current conservation boundaries.

Biologist Marcel Cardillo of Imperial College London and his colleagues
first estimated the overall risk of extinction a given mammal faced based on
factors that led to the loss of other species in the past: a limited and
specific geographic range, large size and relatively long periods of time
needed to mature and reproduce. They then compared these factors to the
animal's current risk of extinction as measured by the World Conservation
Union and came up with a "latent extinction risk." The resulting list
reveals mammals that are not threatened presently but could very quickly
become threatened due to their biological extinction risk factors. In short,
they could jump to the head of the line relatively rapidly.

"We can see this leapfrogging happening now--for example with the Guatemalan
howler monkey, which was classified as being on the 'least concern' list in
2000 but which moved to the 'endangered' list in 2004 as it lost much of its
forest habitat," Cardillo notes. "We hope conservationists will use our
findings to preempt future species loss rather than concentrating solely on
those species already under threat."

The arctic and tundra regions of North America and the islands stretching
from the Indian Ocean to the South Pacific dominated the list, with New
Guinea earning the dubious distinction of having the highest overall level
of latent risk. The list includes a broad range of species, such as the
North American reindeer, the musk ox, the Seychelles flying fox and
Madagascar's brown lemur. Areas like Europe and Japan had the lowest threat,
thanks to centuries of human development and relatively few surviving
species at risk, according to the research, published in the current edition
of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Although these latent-risk hot spots are not necessarily the same as
biodiversity hot spots, they may offer the chance to quash extinction
pressures before they develop. "Latent-risk hot spots might provide
cost-effective options for conservation," adds co-author Andy Purvis of
Imperial College London. "They're places that are relatively intact and
preventing damage is likely to be cheaper and more effective than trying to
repair it." --David Biello

Full Text at Scientific American
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=000B7174-0929-140E-892983414B7F0000

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek


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