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You are a conservation biologist and have just completed a conservation review p

ID: 178764 • Letter: Y

Question

You are a conservation biologist and have just completed a conservation review project focused on a single mammal species. You are taking your research in a new direction, looking for a study system with diverse species. You begin by evaluating four groups of potential study species, using data from the 2008 IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List of Threatened Species, shown in Table 1 below.

4. Complete Table 3 (your completed table will be referred to as Table 4). First, calculate the proportion of evaluated species that are threatened in each group. Next, calculate the estimated number of described species that are potentially threatened, based on the number of described species and the proportion of evaluated species that are threatened in each group. Round your estimated number of potentially threatened species to the nearest whole integer

Table 1 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species Number of species Number of species Number of species Group described evaluated threatened Vertebrates 61,259 5,966 26,604 6,161 2,496 Invertebrates 1,232,384 8,448 11,995 Plants 288,468 3 3 Lichen /Fungi 47,000 Source: Data from the 2008 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, as reported in Vie et al. (2009).

Explanation / Answer

Group

NO. of species described

No of species evaluated

No of species threatened

Proportion o species threatened

Proportion of evaluated species threatened

Vertebrates

61,259

26,604

5,966

9.7%

22.4% = 22%

Invertebrates

1,232,384

6,161

2,496

0.2%

40.5% = 41%

Plants

288,468

11,995

8,448

2.9%

70.4% = 70%

Lichens/Fungi

47,000

3

3

0.006%

100%

Group

NO. of species described

No of species evaluated

No of species threatened

Proportion o species threatened

Proportion of evaluated species threatened

Vertebrates

61,259

26,604

5,966

9.7%

22.4% = 22%

Invertebrates

1,232,384

6,161

2,496

0.2%

40.5% = 41%

Plants

288,468

11,995

8,448

2.9%

70.4% = 70%

Lichens/Fungi

47,000

3

3

0.006%

100%