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Rapid Least Concern: towards automating Red List assessments

Abstract. BACKGROUND: The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species(TM) (hereafter the Red List) is an important global resource for conservation that supports conservation planning, safeguarding critical habitat and monitoring biodiversity change (Rodrigues et al. 2006). However, a major shortcoming of t...

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Autores principales: Bachman, Steven, Walker, Barnaby Eliot, Barrios, Sara, Copeland, Alison, Moat, Justin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Pensoft Publishers 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6992691/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32025186
http://dx.doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.8.e47018
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author Bachman, Steven
Walker, Barnaby Eliot
Barrios, Sara
Copeland, Alison
Moat, Justin
author_facet Bachman, Steven
Walker, Barnaby Eliot
Barrios, Sara
Copeland, Alison
Moat, Justin
author_sort Bachman, Steven
collection PubMed
description Abstract. BACKGROUND: The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species(TM) (hereafter the Red List) is an important global resource for conservation that supports conservation planning, safeguarding critical habitat and monitoring biodiversity change (Rodrigues et al. 2006). However, a major shortcoming of the Red List is that most of the world's described species have not yet been assessed and published on the Red List (Bachman et al. 2019Eisenhauer et al. 2019). Conservation efforts can be better supported if the Red List is expanded to achieve greater coverage of mega-diverse groups of organisms such as plants, fungi and invertebrates. There is, therefore, an urgent need to speed up the Red List assessment and documentation workflow. One reason for this lack of species coverage is that a manual and relatively time-consuming procedure is usually employed to assess and document species. A recent update of Red List documentation standards (IUCN 2013) reduced the data requirements for publishing non-threatened or 'Least Concern' species on the Red List. The majority of the required fields for Least Concern plant species can be found in existing open-access data sources or can be easily calculated. There is an opportunity to consolidate these data and analyses into a simple application to fast-track the publication of Least Concern assessments for plants. There could be as many as 250,000 species of plants (60%) likely to be categorised as Least Concern (Bachman et al. 2019), for which automatically generated assessments could considerably reduce the outlay of time and valuable resources for Red Listing, allowing attention and resources to be dedicated to the assessment of those species most likely to be threatened. NEW INFORMATION: We present a web application, Rapid Least Concern, that addresses the challenge of accelerating the generation and documentation of Least Concern Red List assessments. Rapid Least Concern utilises open-source datasets, such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and Plants of the World Online (POWO) through a simple web interface. Initially, the application is intended for use on plants, but it could be extended to other groups, depending on the availability of equivalent datasets for these groups. Rapid Least Concern users can assess a single species or upload a list of species that are assessed in a batch operation. The batch operation can either utilise georeferenced occurrence data from GBIF or occurrence data provided by the user. The output includes a series of CSV files and a point map file that meet the minimum data requirements for a Least Concern Red List assessment (IUCN 2013). The CSV files are compliant with the IUCN Red List SIS Connect system that transfers the data files to the IUCN database and, pending quality control checks and review, publication on the Red List. We outline the knowledge gap this application aims to fill and describe how the application works. We demonstrate a use-case for Rapid Least Concern as part of an ongoing initiative to complete a global Red List assessment of all native species for the United Kingdom Overseas Territory of Bermuda.
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spelling pubmed-69926912020-02-05 Rapid Least Concern: towards automating Red List assessments Bachman, Steven Walker, Barnaby Eliot Barrios, Sara Copeland, Alison Moat, Justin Biodivers Data J Software Description Abstract. BACKGROUND: The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species(TM) (hereafter the Red List) is an important global resource for conservation that supports conservation planning, safeguarding critical habitat and monitoring biodiversity change (Rodrigues et al. 2006). However, a major shortcoming of the Red List is that most of the world's described species have not yet been assessed and published on the Red List (Bachman et al. 2019Eisenhauer et al. 2019). Conservation efforts can be better supported if the Red List is expanded to achieve greater coverage of mega-diverse groups of organisms such as plants, fungi and invertebrates. There is, therefore, an urgent need to speed up the Red List assessment and documentation workflow. One reason for this lack of species coverage is that a manual and relatively time-consuming procedure is usually employed to assess and document species. A recent update of Red List documentation standards (IUCN 2013) reduced the data requirements for publishing non-threatened or 'Least Concern' species on the Red List. The majority of the required fields for Least Concern plant species can be found in existing open-access data sources or can be easily calculated. There is an opportunity to consolidate these data and analyses into a simple application to fast-track the publication of Least Concern assessments for plants. There could be as many as 250,000 species of plants (60%) likely to be categorised as Least Concern (Bachman et al. 2019), for which automatically generated assessments could considerably reduce the outlay of time and valuable resources for Red Listing, allowing attention and resources to be dedicated to the assessment of those species most likely to be threatened. NEW INFORMATION: We present a web application, Rapid Least Concern, that addresses the challenge of accelerating the generation and documentation of Least Concern Red List assessments. Rapid Least Concern utilises open-source datasets, such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and Plants of the World Online (POWO) through a simple web interface. Initially, the application is intended for use on plants, but it could be extended to other groups, depending on the availability of equivalent datasets for these groups. Rapid Least Concern users can assess a single species or upload a list of species that are assessed in a batch operation. The batch operation can either utilise georeferenced occurrence data from GBIF or occurrence data provided by the user. The output includes a series of CSV files and a point map file that meet the minimum data requirements for a Least Concern Red List assessment (IUCN 2013). The CSV files are compliant with the IUCN Red List SIS Connect system that transfers the data files to the IUCN database and, pending quality control checks and review, publication on the Red List. We outline the knowledge gap this application aims to fill and describe how the application works. We demonstrate a use-case for Rapid Least Concern as part of an ongoing initiative to complete a global Red List assessment of all native species for the United Kingdom Overseas Territory of Bermuda. Pensoft Publishers 2020-01-23 /pmc/articles/PMC6992691/ /pubmed/32025186 http://dx.doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.8.e47018 Text en Steven Bachman, Barnaby Eliot Walker, Sara Barrios, Alison Copeland, Justin Moat http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Software Description
Bachman, Steven
Walker, Barnaby Eliot
Barrios, Sara
Copeland, Alison
Moat, Justin
Rapid Least Concern: towards automating Red List assessments
title Rapid Least Concern: towards automating Red List assessments
title_full Rapid Least Concern: towards automating Red List assessments
title_fullStr Rapid Least Concern: towards automating Red List assessments
title_full_unstemmed Rapid Least Concern: towards automating Red List assessments
title_short Rapid Least Concern: towards automating Red List assessments
title_sort rapid least concern: towards automating red list assessments
topic Software Description
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6992691/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32025186
http://dx.doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.8.e47018
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