To effectively protect a species, conservationists need key pieces of information: where it lives and what threats it faces. Yet scientists lack these basic data for thousands of species around the world, making it impossible to know how they’re faring—let alone to take steps to ensure their survival.
Borgelt and his colleagues based their analysis on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species, a global database that categorizes the extinction risk posed to more than 147,500 species. Depending on the species group, however, about 10 to 20 percent of animals, plants and fungi on the Red List are listed as data-deficient, meaning there is inadequate information to determine their conservation status one way or the other.
The model projected that more than half of the data-deficient species included in the analysis are threatened with extinction. Some animal groups seem to be in more dire straits than others. According to the findings, 85 percent of amphibians, 62 percent of insects, 61 percent of mammals, and 59 percent of reptiles that are data-deficient are probably at risk of disappearing.
The new finding in Communications Biology that data-deficient species may be more threatened than species whose conservation status is known is not necessarily surprising, but it does reinforce the need for comprehensive extinction risk assessments, says Louise Mair, a conservation biologist at Newcastle University in England, who was not involved in the research. “Up-to-date Red List assessments are crucial to inform action and measure progress,” she says.
Different reality different dimension on a different angle as well.
Still depends on the data used.
We need to get locals more involved in their own watersheds and ecosystems to help with monitoring flora and fauna. In the right context, citizen science does bring value.
Maybe ppl should stop listening to fauci & the government then🤷🏼♀️