Estimating the global conservation status of over 15,000 Amazonian tree species

Abstract

Estimates of extinction risk for Amazonian plant and animal species are rare, and not often incorporated into land-use policy and conservation planning. Here we overlay spatial distribution models with historical and projected deforestation to show that at least 40% and up to 64% of all Amazonian tree species are likely to qualify as globally threatened under IUCN Red List criteria. If confirmed, these results would increase the number of threatened plant species on Earth by 22%. We further show that the trends observed in Amazonia apply to trees throughout the tropics, and predict that most of the world's >40,000 tropical tree species currently qualify as globally threatened. A gap analysis suggests that existing Amazonian protected areas and indigenous territories will protect viable populations of most threatened species if those areas suffer no further degradation, highlighting the key roles that protected areas, indigenous peoples, and improved governance can play in preventing large-scale extinctions in the tropics in this century.

Metadata

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Steege, HT Pitman, NCA Killeen, TJ Laurance, WF Peres, CA Guevara, JE Salomão, RP Castilho, CV Amaral, IL Dionízia de Almeida Matos, F de Souza Coelho, L Magnusson, WE Phillips, OLB https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8993-6168 de Andrade Lima Filho, D de Jesus Veiga Carim, M Victória Irume, M Martins, MP Molino, J-F Sabatier, D Wittmann, F Lopez, DC da Silva Guimarães, JR Monteagudo Mendoza, A Vargas, PN Manzatto, AG Farias Costa Reis, N Terborgh, J Casula, KR Montero, JC Feldpausch, TR Honorio Coronado, EN Duque Montoya, AJ Zartman, ZE Mostacedo, B Vasquez, R Assis, RL Brilhante Medeiros, M Fragomeni Simon, M Andrade, A Camargo, JL Laurance, SGW Mendonça Nascimento, HE Marimon, BS Marimon Jr, B-H Costa F Targhetta, N Guimarães Vieira, IC Brienen, R https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5397-5755 Castellanos, H Duivenvoorden, JF Mogollón, HF Fernandez Piedade, MT Aymard, GA Comiskey, JA Damasco, G Dávila, N García-Villacorta, R Stevenson Diaz, PR Vincentini, A Emilio, T Levis, C Schietti, J Souza, P Alonso, A Dallmeier, F Valle Ferreira, L Neill, D Araujo-Murakami, A Arroyo, L Antunes Carvalho, F Coelho Souza, F Dantas do Amaral, D Gribel, R Garcia Luize, B Petrati Pansonato, M Venticinque, E Fine, P Toldeo, M Baraloto, C Cerón, C Engel, J Henkel, TW Jimenez, EM Maas, P Peñuela Mora, MC Petronelli, P Cardenas Revilla, JD Silveira, M Stropp, J Thomas-Caesar, R Baker, TR Daly, D Ríos Paredes, M Ferreira da Silva, N Fuentes, A Møller Jørgensen, P Schöngart, J Silman, MR Castaño Arboleda, N Ladvocat Cintra, B Cornejo Valverde, F Di Fiore, A Fernando Phillips, J van Andel, TR von Hildebrand, P Marques Barbosa, E de Matos Bonates, LC de Castro, D de Sousa Farias, E Gonzales, T Guillaumet, J-L Hoffman, B Malhi, Y de Andrade Miranda, IP Prieto, M Rudas, A Ruschell, AR Silva, N Vela, CIA Vos, VA Zent, EL Zent, S Cano, A Trindade Nascimento, M Oliveira, AA Ramirez-Angulo, H Ferreira Ramos, J Sierra, R Tirado, M Umaña Medina, MN van der Heijden, G Vilanova Torre, E Vriesendorp, C Wang, O Young, KR Baider, C Balslev, H de Castro, N Farfan-Rios, W Ferreira, C Mendoza, C Mesonos, I Torres-Lezama, A Urrego Giraldo, LE Villarroel, D Zagt, R Alexiades, MN Garcia-Cabrera, K Hernandez, L Huamantupa-Chuquimaco, I Milliken, W Palacios Cuenca, W Pansini, S Pauletto, D Ramirez Arevalo, F Sampaio, AF Valderrama Sandoval, EH
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	2015 © The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).
Dates:	Published: 20 November 2015 Accepted: 7 October 2015
Institution:	The University of Leeds
Academic Units:	The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) > Ecology & Global Change (Leeds)
Funding Information:	Funder Grant number EU - European Union 291585 (ERC 2011 ADG)
Depositing User:	Symplectic Publications
Date Deposited:	30 Oct 2015 10:05
Last Modified:	26 Apr 2019 15:08
Published Version:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1500936
Status:	Published
Publisher:	American Association for the Advancement of Science
Identification Number:	10.1126/sciadv.1500936
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:91280

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Estimating the global conservation status of over 15,000 Amazonian tree species

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