Animals around the globe face rising extinction rates, but there is often a lack of data about the causes of population declines, as well as ecological and biological considerations for conservation.
Animals around the globe face rising extinction rates, but there is often a lack of data about the causes of population declines, as well as ecological and biological considerations for conservation.
For example, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) provides a catalog of the conservation status for species around the globe, but many species are listed as “data deficient” because of this lack of information.
A new collaborative study between students from University of Montana and the Universidad de Concepcion in Chile seeks to understand the type and magnitude of gaps in scientific information as a way to improve conservation planning.
The authors used Chile – a biodiversity hot-spot where 55 percent of plants and nearly 15 percent of mammals are endemic – as a case study to assess trends in available ecological and biological information relevant to conservation planning for threatened and endangered terrestrial mammals. Specifically, the team read and assessed scientific literature for 22 IUCN red-listed species in Chile and categorized it by topic and species.
Read more at The University of Montana
Photo Credit: minka2507 via Pixabay
