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. 2015 Nov 20;1(10):e1500936.
doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1500936. eCollection 2015 Nov.

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

Hans Ter Steege  1 , Nigel C A Pitman  2 , Timothy J Killeen  3 , William F Laurance  4 , Carlos A Peres  5 , Juan Ernesto Guevara  6 , Rafael P Salomão  7 , Carolina V Castilho  8 , Iêda Leão Amaral  9 , Francisca Dionízia de Almeida Matos  9 , Luiz de Souza Coelho  9 , William E Magnusson  10 , Oliver L Phillips  11 , Diogenes de Andrade Lima Filho  9 , Marcelo de Jesus Veiga Carim  12 , Mariana Victória Irume  9 , Maria Pires Martins  9 , Jean-François Molino  13 , Daniel Sabatier  13 , Florian Wittmann  14 , Dairon Cárdenas López  15 , José Renan da Silva Guimarães  12 , Abel Monteagudo Mendoza  16 , Percy Núñez Vargas  17 , Angelo Gilberto Manzatto  18 , Neidiane Farias Costa Reis  19 , John Terborgh  20 , Katia Regina Casula  19 , Juan Carlos Montero  21 , Ted R Feldpausch  22 , Euridice N Honorio Coronado  23 , Alvaro Javier Duque Montoya  24 , Charles Eugene Zartman  9 , Bonifacio Mostacedo  25 , Rodolfo Vasquez  16 , Rafael L Assis  26 , Marcelo Brilhante Medeiros  27 , Marcelo Fragomeni Simon  27 , Ana Andrade  28 , José Luís Camargo  28 , Susan G W Laurance  4 , Henrique Eduardo Mendonça Nascimento  9 , Beatriz S Marimon  29 , Ben-Hur Marimon Jr  29 , Flávia Costa  10 , Natalia Targhetta  26 , Ima Célia Guimarães Vieira  7 , Roel Brienen  11 , Hernán Castellanos  30 , Joost F Duivenvoorden  31 , Hugo F Mogollón  32 , Maria Teresa Fernandez Piedade  26 , Gerardo A Aymard C  33 , James A Comiskey  34 , Gabriel Damasco  35 , Nállarett Dávila  36 , Roosevelt García-Villacorta  37 , Pablo Roberto Stevenson Diaz  38 , Alberto Vincentini  10 , Thaise Emilio  39 , Carolina Levis  40 , Juliana Schietti  10 , Priscila Souza  10 , Alfonso Alonso  41 , Francisco Dallmeier  41 , Leandro Valle Ferreira  7 , David Neill  42 , Alejandro Araujo-Murakami  43 , Luzmila Arroyo  43 , Fernanda Antunes Carvalho  10 , Fernanda Coelho Souza  10 , Dário Dantas do Amaral  7 , Rogerio Gribel  44 , Bruno Garcia Luize  45 , Marcelo Petrati Pansonato  10 , Eduardo Venticinque  46 , Paul Fine  35 , Marisol Toledo  47 , Chris Baraloto  48 , Carlos Cerón  49 , Julien Engel  50 , Terry W Henkel  51 , Eliana M Jimenez  52 , Paul Maas  53 , Maria Cristina Peñuela Mora  54 , Pascal Petronelli  55 , Juan David Cardenas Revilla  9 , Marcos Silveira  56 , Juliana Stropp  57 , Raquel Thomas-Caesar  58 , Tim R Baker  11 , Doug Daly  59 , Marcos Ríos Paredes  60 , Naara Ferreira da Silva  26 , Alfredo Fuentes  61 , Peter Møller Jørgensen  62 , Jochen Schöngart  14 , Miles R Silman  63 , Nicolás Castaño Arboleda  15 , Bruno Barçante Ladvocat Cintra  26 , Fernando Cornejo Valverde  64 , Anthony Di Fiore  65 , Juan Fernando Phillips  66 , Tinde R van Andel  67 , Patricio von Hildebrand  68 , Edelcilio Marques Barbosa  9 , Luiz Carlos de Matos Bonates  9 , Deborah de Castro  26 , Emanuelle de Sousa Farias  69 , Therany Gonzales  70 , Jean-Louis Guillaumet  71 , Bruce Hoffman  72 , Yadvinder Malhi  73 , Ires Paula de Andrade Miranda  9 , Adriana Prieto  74 , Agustín Rudas  74 , Ademir R Ruschell  75 , Natalino Silva  76 , César I A Vela  77 , Vincent A Vos  78 , Eglée L Zent  79 , Stanford Zent  79 , Angela Cano  38 , Marcelo Trindade Nascimento  80 , Alexandre A Oliveira  81 , Hirma Ramirez-Angulo  82 , José Ferreira Ramos  9 , Rodrigo Sierra  83 , Milton Tirado  83 , Maria Natalia Umaña Medina  84 , Geertje van der Heijden  85 , Emilio Vilanova Torre  82 , Corine Vriesendorp  86 , Ophelia Wang  87 , Kenneth R Young  88 , Claudia Baider  89 , Henrik Balslev  90 , Natalia de Castro  26 , William Farfan-Rios  63 , Cid Ferreira  9 , Casimiro Mendoza  91 , Italo Mesones  35 , Armando Torres-Lezama  82 , Ligia Estela Urrego Giraldo  24 , Daniel Villarroel  43 , Roderick Zagt  92 , Miguel N Alexiades  93 , Karina Garcia-Cabrera  63 , Lionel Hernandez  94 , Isau Huamantupa-Chuquimaco  17 , William Milliken  95 , Walter Palacios Cuenca  96 , Susamar Pansini  97 , Daniela Pauletto  98 , Freddy Ramirez Arevalo  99 , Adeilza Felipe Sampaio  97 , Elvis H Valderrama Sandoval  100 , Luis Valenzuela Gamarra  16
Affiliations

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

Hans Ter Steege et al. Sci Adv. .

Abstract

Estimates of extinction risk for Amazonian plant and animal species are rare and not often incorporated into land-use policy and conservation planning. We overlay spatial distribution models with historical and projected deforestation to show that at least 36% and up to 57% of all Amazonian tree species are likely to qualify as globally threatened under International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List criteria. If confirmed, these results would increase the number of threatened plant species on Earth by 22%. We show that the trends observed in Amazonia apply to trees throughout the tropics, and we predict that most of the world's >40,000 tropical tree species now 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 these 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.

Keywords: Amazonia; Conservation; Deforestation; Indigenous areas; Protected areas; Tree species.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Estimated population declines and threat status of Amazonian tree species under historical deforestation and two projected deforestation scenarios.
Historical deforestation (A to C). Projected deforestation (D to I). Top row: Percent population loss of 4953 tree species in the entire Amazon and in six Amazonian regions. Middle row: Percent species in a DGC estimated as globally threatened based on projected (including historical) forest loss (IUCN A2 and A4; n = 4953). Bottom row: Proportion of all 15,200 Amazonian tree species estimated to be globally threatened based on four different IUCN threat criteria. BAU: projected (including historical) deforestation through 2050 based on a BAU scenario (1, 2); IGS: projected (including historical) deforestation through 2050 based on an IGS (1, 2). Cristalino State Park is the small black polygon in southeastern Amazonia, encircled in (B). CA, Central Amazonia; GS, Guiana Shield; WAS, Southwestern Amazonia; WAN, Northwestern Amazonia; SA, Southern Amazonia; EA, Eastern Amazonia; CR, critically endangered; EN, endangered; VU, vulnerable.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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