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Journal for Nature Conservation 19 (2011) 6971

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal for Nature Conservation

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s e v i e r . d e / j n c

Assessing extinction risk across borders: Integration of a biogeographicalapproach into regional IUCN assessment?

Rodolfo Gentili a, G. Rossi b,, T. Abeli b, G. Bedini c, Bruno Foggi d

a Dipartimento di Scienze dellAmbiente e del Territorio, Universit degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Piazza della Scienza 1, I-20126 Milano, Italyb Dipartimento di Ecologia del Territorio, Universit degli Studi di Pavia, Via S. Epifanio 14, I-27100 Pavia, Italyc Dipartimento di Biologia, Universit di Pisa, Via Luca Ghini 5, I-56126 Pisa, Italyd Dipartimento di Biologia Vegetale, Universit di Firenze, Via La Pira 4, I-50121 Firenze, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 26 February 2010

Received in revised form 27 April 2010

Accepted 2 June 2010

Keywords:

Biogeography and conservation

IUCN assessments

Funds allocation

Political borders

Red Lists

a b s t r a c t

In ecological studies it is widely accepted that the biogeographical subdivision of continents and regionssimplifies and integrates the complexity of natural ecosystems and species range by separating vari-

ation or distinctions into biogeographical subdivisions that could be used as appropriate units for theconservation of biodiversity. In this paper we support the opinion that the biogeographical approach

could be a unifying method for the analysis of the extinction risk of threatened species according to theIUCNCategoriesand Criteria at the regional level. We examinedrecent papers regardingthe conservation

assessment of species and discussed the advantages of incorporating convergence of conservation actionplans between bordering countries, and financial issues, into the IUCN protocol.

2010 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is recognised as one ofthe most authoritative sources of information on the global con-

servation status of species (Miller et al. 2007). The IUCN has setan objective, repeatable, and scientific standard for species listings,based on the assessment of extinction risk at a global level (IUCN2001; Mace et al. 2008). This standard is often applied to regional

assessments and local administrative levels(IUCN 2003). However,the most appropriate biogeographical or geopolitical scale for localconservation actions is arguable (Hartley & Kunin 2003; Martn2009).

In this opinion article, we discuss a biogeographical approachfor assessing species extinction risk by applying the IUCN Cate-gories and Criteria to the regional level (IUCN 2001, 2003). For

regional assessments, as in national Red Lists, the IUCN Cate-gories and Criteria have been generally applied with referenceto political units (Grdenfors 2001; Grdenfors et al. 2001; IUCN2003). This is because conservation actions are mainly imple-mented at the national level; thus, these lists are influential for

determining conservation priorities (Miller et al. 2007). However,the ranges of species seldom correspond to political boundaries,making the administrative approach unsuitable for the evaluation

Corresponding author.

E-mail address: graziano.rossi@unipv.it(G. Rossi).

of the species extinction risk (Leppig & White 2006; Rodrigues &

Gaston 2002). To bypass the inadequacy of political boundaries insetting conservation policies, many authors have recommended abiogeographical approach to protecting biodiversity (Abbit et al.

2000; Hoffmann et al. 2008; Olson & Dinerstein 1998; Olson et al.2001; Pawar et al. 2007; Spector 2002; Whittaker et al. 2005 ).

According to Udvardy (1975), the aims of conservation biologywithin a biogeographical context are the preservation of mem-

bers of biotas (such as individuals, populations, or species) andfunctional ecological systems (Blondel 1999). In practice, the prin-cipal aims of conservation biologists should be to know the risk ofextinction for given species and to determine where resources for

protected species andecosystems canbest be allocated (Plassmann2004; Robbirt et al. 2006; WWF Italia 2006). In this context, wepropose that a biogeographical approach should be considered for

editing regional (sub-global) Red Lists, following the IUCN Cate-gories and Criteria.

What are the advantages of a biogeographical approach toregional Red-Listing? The main goal of the biogeographicalapproach is to get conservation and economic advantage, mainly

in the case of species whose extent of occurrence is located at theborder between two or more political units. Different assessmentsof species between bordering regions can result in different lev-els of protection to the same species. A biogeographic area is an

area where similar biotic and abiotic forces drove the evolution ofthe populationthere present. Evaluation of species extinction risksat the biogeographical level would provide an assessment of all

1617-1381/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.jnc.2010.06.001

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2010.06.001http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2010.06.001http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/16171381http://www.elsevier.de/jncmailto:graziano.rossi@unipv.ithttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2010.06.001http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2010.06.001mailto:graziano.rossi@unipv.ithttp://www.elsevier.de/jnchttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/16171381http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2010.06.001

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70 R. Gentili et al. / Journal for Nature Conservation 19 (2011) 6971

populations within a homogeneous area, which presumably sharethe same threats and would require similar management needs

(e.g., the Alpine or Mediterranean regions). This is particularly truefor animals that migrate or move between bordering nations that,as pointed out by Berger (2004), pose a serious conservation con-cern (e.g., brown bears in the Alpine regions of Italy, Slovenia, and

Austria) (Wiegand et al. 2004). Having biogeographical knowledgecould put local conservation situations into a broader perspec-tive (Keller & Bollmann 2004), avoiding unnecessary conservationefforts and waste of money (Bladt et al. 2009). The integration

of bioregions in the IUCN Categories and Criteria does not ruleout assessments at the national level (or any other administrativelevel); in fact, after making an assessment at the biogeographicallevel,the same threatcategory/iescouldbe assigned to thenational

level by superimposing geopolitical boundaries onto the biogeo-graphical subdivision. For example, across the Carpathian region(Rivas-Martnez et al. 2004) many species have been assigned tohigh threat categories within each country, but at the biogeo-

graphical level they were assigned to lower categories of threat(Witkowski et al. 2003). In the Alpine region, plant species havebeen assigned to different risk categories in different countries(e.g., Orchis palustris Jacq.) (Moser et al. 2002; Rossi et al. 2008).

At the sub-national level in Italy and Spain, many plant species

occurring at the borders of two administrative regions have beenassigned to different threat categories (Conti et al. 1997; SEBCP2009). Most of these species probably require the same protec-

tion in different regions; thus, an assessment of extinction risk atthe biogeographical level could facilitate the convergence of actionplans in different administrative areas. Cooperation between bor-dering countries and states or provinces within countries should

be possible, at least for unions or federations of states (the EU, USA,Australia, Russia, etc.) (Bladt et al. 2009). However, in some cases,the ecological, evolutionary, and conservation processes may havemarked variations among different areas of a same biogeographical

region. In these cases, before superimposing a biogeographicalrisk category, local conditions should be considered and under-stood, to avoid a loss of conservation value. This kind of trade-off

would favour an homogenisation of the estimated extinction riskwhen differences between geographic areas are inconsistent; onthe contrary,it wouldhighlightcases of relevant conservation units.

Red Lists at the global or sub-global level (IUCN 2001, 2003)include data not only on threats to species, but also on species

distributions (extent of occurrence) and habitats at different tem-poral and spatial scales (Hoffmann et al. 2008). Hence, they areprobably the main source of information for conservation planners(Lamoreux et al. 2003). However, what does the study of species

distribution, habitat preference, and habitat fragmentation repre-sent, if not a biogeographical study?

In some contexts, the IUCN seems interested in applying abiogeographical-like approach (IUCN Species Survival Commission

2008). The Top 50 Mediterranean Island Plants at risk of extinc-

tion (de Montmollin & Strahm 2005) were assessed independentlyof political boundaries. In our opinion this could be consid-ered a good example of a biogeographical approach to regional

IUCN assessment. Other authors have mentioned biogeographicalregions in their application of the IUCN protocol (Cabezudo et al.2005; Moser et al. 2002). A biogeographical approach was also usedin a recent Red-Listing initiative of the Italian Botanical Society and

of an European network of 25 seed banks working on wild flora(Rossi & Gentili 2008; Rossi et al. 2008; ENSCONET 2009). Similarmethodswere applied to evaluate peripheralisolated plantpopula-tions (Abeli et al. 2009) andto prioritisethe conservationof floristic

diversity in the Indian Himalayan region (Rana & Samant 2010).One criticism of the biogeographical approach is that a shared

map of biogeographical regions that could satisfy the whole sci-

entific community does not exist. Defining areas of interest to set

conservation priorities is a recurring issue in the scientific liter-ature (e.g., Myers et al. 2000; Noss 1990; Plantlife International

2004; Turpie et al. 2000). Nevertheless, some subdivisions seem torespond better than others to the demand of botanists and zoolo-gists (see e.g., Olson et al. 2001) and they can represent a startingbase for an international debate.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) has produced a bio-geographical subdivisionof Europe. Its aim is to redirect all financialresources, conservation actions, and restoration activities to thecontinental level (Cond et al. 20022008). This subdivision is the

basis for the application of the European Directive 92/43 Habi-tat and could represent a starting point for the biogeographicalassessment of European species.

We consider the biogeographical approach useful for conser-

vation (see also Richardson & Whittaker 2010), and we proposeits integration into the IUCN Red List Assessment at the regionallevel. In the 1970s, the IUCN proposed a biogeographical subdivi-sion of the world (Udvardy 1975). We expect that such a project

will be resumed and discussed at an international level to ensurethe standardisation of methods.

According to Riddle (2009) What is modern biogeographywithout philogeography; we can add: what is modern conserva-

tion biology without biogeography?

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to L. Boitani (Rome), J.C. Moreno(Madrid) and E. Laguna (Valencia) for providing helpful commentson the manuscript. The authors are also grateful to T. Ulian (Royal

Botanical Garden, Kew) for critical language revisions. Finally, weare grateful to the anonymous reviewers for the useful final sug-gestions.

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