You are a conservation biologist and have just completed a conservation review p
ID: 178765 • 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.
5. Compare your estimates of the numbers of potentially threatened species to the number of species that we know are threatened to determine the “most threatened” group. Which group contains the largest number of known threatened species? Which group contains the largest number of potentially threatened species? Explain why your determination of “most threatened” group differs depending on whether you use data on numbers of known threatened species versus estimates of numbers of potentially threatened species
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
% of species threatened = number of species threatened / number of species evaluated
% of vertebrates threatened = 5966 / 26604 = 22%
% of invertebrates threatened = 2496 / 6161 = 40%
% of plants threatened = 8448 / 11995 = 70%
% of lichens / fungi threatened = 3 / 3 = 1%
Based on the % of threatened species, plants contain largest number of known threatened species. The largest number of potentially threatened species are belong to vertebrates community.
The most threatened group differs from group containing largest number of known threatened species because of the variation in number of species evaluated. Vertebrates contain more number of species evaluated than in plants group. Of the evaluated species 22% of vertebrates are potentially threatened and can be categorized as most endangered species. This can be determined by number of species evaluated and % of species threatened.
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