An understanding of risks to biodiversity is needed for planning action to slow current rates of decline and secure ecosystem services for future human use. Although the IUCN Red List criteria provide an effective assessment protocol for species, a standard global assessment of risks to higher levels of biodiversity is currently limited. In 2008, IUCN initiated development of risk assessment criteria to support a global Red List of ecosystems. We present a new conceptual model for ecosystem risk assessment founded on a synthesis of relevant ecological theories. To support the model, we review key elements of ecosystem definition and introduce the concept of ecosystem collapse, an analogue of species extinction. The model identifies four distributional and functional symptoms of ecosystem risk as a basis for assessment criteria: A) rates of decline in ecosystem distribution; B) restricted distributions with continuing declines or threats; C) rates of environmental (abiotic) degradation; and D) rates of disruption to biotic processes. A fifth criterion, E) quantitative estimates of the risk of ecosystem collapse, enables integrated assessment of multiple processes and provides a conceptual anchor for the other criteria. We present the theoretical rationale for the construction and interpretation of each criterion. The assessment protocol and threat categories mirror those of the IUCN Red List of species. A trial of the protocol on terrestrial, subterranean, freshwater and marine ecosystems from around the world shows that its concepts are workable and its outcomes are robust, that required data are available, and that results are consistent with assessments carried out by local experts and authorities. The new protocol provides a consistent, practical and theoretically grounded framework for establishing a systematic Red List of the world’s ecosystems. This will complement the Red List of species and strengthen global capacity to report on and monitor the status of biodiversity

In response to growing demand for ecosystem-level risk assessment in biodiversity conservation, and rapid proliferation of locally tailored protocols, the IUCN recently endorsed new Red List criteria as a global standard for ecosystem risk assessment. Four qualities were sought in the design of the IUCN criteria: generality; precision; realism; and simplicity. Drawing from extensive global consultation, we explore trade-offs among these qualities when dealing with key challenges, including ecosystem classification, measuring ecosystem dynamics, degradation and collapse, and setting decision thresholds to delimit ordinal categories of threat. Experience from countries with national lists of threatened ecosystems demonstrates well-balanced trade-offs in current and potential applications of Red Lists of Ecosystems in legislation, policy, environmental management and education. The IUCN Red List of Ecosystems should be judged by whether it achieves conservation ends and improves natural resource management, whether its limitations are outweighed by its benefits, and whether it performs better than alternative methods. Future development of the Red List of Ecosystems will benefit from the history of the Red List of Threatened Species which was trialed and adjusted iteratively over 50 years from rudimentary beginnings. We anticipate the Red List of Ecosystems will promote policy focus on conservation outcomes in situ across whole landscapes and seascapes.

The potential for conservation of individual species has been greatly advanced by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) development of objective, repeatable, and transparent criteria for assessing extinction risk that explicitly separate risk assessment from priority setting. At the IV World Conservation Congress in 2008, the process began to develop and implement comparable global standards for ecosystems. A working group established by the IUCN has begun formulating a system of quantitative categories and criteria, analogous to those used for species, for assigning levels of threat to ecosystems at local, regional, and global levels. A final system will require definitions of ecosystems; quantification of ecosystem status; identification of the stages of degradation and loss of ecosystems; proxy measures of risk (criteria); classification thresholds for these criteria; and standardized methods for performing assessments. The system will need to reflect the degree and rate of change in an ecosystem's extent, composition, structure, and function, and have its conceptual roots in ecological theory and empirical research. On the basis of these requirements and the hypothesis that ecosystem risk is a function of the risk of its component species, we propose a set of four criteria: recent declines in distribution or ecological function, historical total loss in distribution or ecological function, small distribution combined with decline, or very small distribution. Most work has focused on terrestrial ecosystems, but comparable thresholds and criteria for freshwater and marine ecosystems are also needed. These are the first steps in an international consultation process that will lead to a unified proposal to be presented at the next World Conservation Congress in 2012.Establecimiento de Criterios para la Lista Roja de UICN de Ecosistemas AmenazadosResumenEl potencial para la conservación de muchas especies ha avanzado enormemente porque la Unión Internacional para la Conservación de la Naturaleza (UICN) ha desarrollado criterios objetivos, repetibles y transparentes para evaluar el riesgo de extinción que explícitamente separa la evaluación de riesgo de la definición de prioridades. En el IV Congreso Mundial de Conservación en 2008, el proceso comenzó a desarrollar e implementar estándares globales comparables para ecosistemas. Un grupo de trabajo establecido por la UICN ha formulado un sistema inicial de categorías y criterios cuantitativos, análogos a los utilizados para especies, para asignar niveles de amenaza a ecosistemas a niveles local, regional y global. Un sistema final requerirá de definiciones de ecosistemas; cuantificación del estatus de ecosistemas; identificación de las etapas de degradación y pérdida de los ecosistemas; medidas de riesgo (criterios) alternativas; umbrales de clasificación para esos criterios y métodos estandarizados para la realización de evaluaciones. El sistema deberá reflejar el nivel y tasa de cambio en la extensión, composición, estructura y funcio...

The newly developed IUCN Red List of Ecosystems is part of a growing toolbox for assessing risks to biodiversity, which addresses ecosystems and their functioning. The Red List of Ecosystems standard allows systematic assessment of all freshwater, marine, terrestrial and subterranean ecosystem types in terms of their global risk of collapse. In addition, the Red List of Ecosystems categories and criteria provide a technical base for assessments of ecosystem status at the regional, national, or subnational level. While the Red List of Ecosystems criteria were designed to be widely applicable by scientists and practitioners, guidelines are needed to ensure they are implemented in a standardized manner to reduce epistemic uncertainties and allow robust comparisons among ecosystems and over time. We review the intended application of the Red List of Ecosystems assessment process, summarize ‘best-practice’ methods for ecosystem assessments and outline approaches to ensure operational rigour of assessments. The Red List of Ecosystems will inform priority setting for ecosystem types worldwide, and strengthen capacity to report on progress towards the Aichi Targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity. When integrated with other IUCN knowledge products, such as the World Database of Protected Areas/Protected Planet, Key Biodiversity Areas and the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the Red List of Ecosystems will contribute to providing the most complete global measure of the status of biodiversity yet achieved.

There are at least 24 different karyotypic races of house mouse in the central Alps, each characterized by a different complement of ancestral acrocentric and derived metacentric chromosomes; altogether 55 different metacentric chromosomes have been described from the region. We argue that this chromosome variation largely arose in situ. If these races were to make contact, in most cases they would produce F1 hybrids with substantial infertility (sometimes complete sterility), due to nondisjunction and germ cell death associated with the formation of long-chain and/or ring configurations at meiosis. We present fertility estimates to confirm this for two particular hybrid types, one of which demonstrates male-limited sterility (in accordance with Haldane's Rule). As well as a model for speciation in allopatry, the Alpine mouse populations are of interest with regards speciation in parapatry: we discuss a possible reinforcement event. Raciation of house mice appears to have happened on numerous occasions within the central Alps. To investigate one possible source of new karyotypic races, we use a two-dimensional stepping stone model to examine the generation of recombinant races within chromosomal hybrid zones. Using field-derived ecological data and laboratory-derived fertility estimates, we show that hybrid karyotypic races can be generated at a reasonable frequency in simulations. Our model complements others developed for flowering plants that also emphasize the potential of chromosomal hybrid zones in generating new stable karyotypic forms.

The conservation of individual plant and animal species has been advanced greatly by the World Conservation Union's (IUCN) development of objective, repeatable, and transparent criteria for assessing extinction risk, which explicitly separate the process of risk assessment from priority-setting. Here we present an analogous procedure for assessing the extinction risk of terrestrial ecosystems, which may complement traditional species-specific risk assessments, or may provide an alternative when only landscape-level data are available. We developed four quantitative risk criteria, derived primarily from remotely sensed spatial data, information on one of which must be available to permit classification. Using a naming system analogous to the present IUCN species-specific system, our four criteria were: (A) reduction of land cover and continuing threat, (B) rapid rate of land cover change, (C) increased fragmentation, and (D) highly restricted geographical distribution. We applied these criteria to five ecosystems covering a range of spatial and temporal scales, regions of the world, and ecosystem types, and found that Indonesian Borneo's lowland tropical forests and the Brazilian Atlantic rainforest were Critically Endangered, while South Africa's grasslands and Brazil's Mato Grosso were Vulnerable. Furthermore, at a finer grain of analysis, one region of Venezuela's coastal dry forests (Margarita Island) qualified as Vulnerable, while another (the Guasare River watershed) was Critically Endangered. In northern

Pteropus livingstonii, P. voeltzkowi, and P. rodricensis are three critically endangered fruit bats from western Indian Ocean islands for which multidisciplinary conservation programs have been established that include environmental education programs (EEPs). We describe these EEPs in terms of the strategies used to achieve them and evaluate the educational and conservation outcomes and impacts of the programs. Educational outputs (including posters, stickers, videos, lesson plans, and workshops), primarily linking human needs to the ecosystem services provided by bats, were delivered to schools and community groups, and local environmental educators were trained to further develop the EEPs. Outcomes included increased local awareness about the bats and their conservation, training of environmental educators, inclusion of bat conservation and environmental issues in the school curricula, and establishment of community-based environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Extensive prior planning, presentations in local languages, distribution of outputs through existing networks of educators, training of local educators, establishment of local environmental NGOs, and local capacity-building were all associated with these EEPs achieving their goals in the under-resourced island locations where these bats are found. The EEPs were also important in the development of other components of their respective conservation programs, such as population monitoring programs. Although long-term conservation impacts, particularly tackling habitat loss, are slow to materialize and social and economic issues need to be addressed, these EEPs have already had important outcomes and have established the foundation for future conservation actions. ‡ ‡ ‡Current address: Action Comores (International), The Old Rectory, Stansfield, Suffolk, CO10 8LT, United Kingdom, email will.trewhella@ nottingham.ac.uk § § §Current address: 76 Fruit Bat Education Programs Trewhella et al. Resumen: Pteropus livingstonii, P. voeltzkowi, y P. rodricensis son tres especies de murciélagos frugívoros en peligro crítico en islas del OcéanoÍndico Occidental para las que se han establecido programas multidisciplinarios de conservación que incluyen programas de educación ambiental (PEE). Describimos estos PEE en términos de las estrategias utilizadas para llevarlos a cabo y los evaluamos en relación con sus resultados e impactos educativos y de conservación. Productos educativos (incluyendo carteles, calcomanías, videos, planes de enseñanza y talleres), principalmente relacionando necesidades humanas con los servicios ecológicos proporcionados por murciélagos, fueron entregados a escuelas y grupos comunitarios, y se capacitó a educadores ambientales locales para desarrollar los PEE. Los resultados incluyeron incremento en la percepción local sobre los murciélagos y su conservación, capacitación de educadores ambientales, inclusión de temas de conservación y ambientales en el currículo de escuelas y el establecimiento de organizaciones no gubernamentales (O...

Unsustainable harvest is one of the most important threats to biodiversity, and birds are highly impacted, but avian markets remain poorly understood. When species value and corruption/criminality are high, the “parallel trafficking” hypothesis predicts that illegal animal items will move through networks used for other illicit products. Alternatively, when particular demands, logistical skills or access limits trade, “specialized trafficking” hypotheses predict that few, expert actors will control markets. Here, we use social network analysis of trade in an Endangered songbird, the Red Siskin Spinus cucullatus, originating in Venezuela, to examine the generality of the parallel trafficking hypothesis in a setting where corruption/criminality and species value are high. In spite of these circumstances, of 2575 Red Siskin (RS) records compiled from 2010 to 2017, we found just six reports consistent with parallel trafficking. Instead, we discovered an independent network of 15 actor types, and a trade structure consistent with specialized trafficking. Just two intermediary types (national vendors to intermediaries and to consumers) and one consumer type (national breeders) had the highest exposure to the flow of birds, and the most trade connectivity. Use of wild‐caught over captive‐bred birds was high (67% of records), as was use of natural‐phenotype birds over hybrid or mutant‐phenotype birds (65% of records). Geographically, Spain and Venezuela had the highest exposure to the flow of birds, but Brazil and Colombia had the most direct connections with other countries. The unexpected lack of evidence for parallel trafficking suggests that combined flows of illicit products are not inevitable, even in adverse settings. In a context where law enforcement may not be feasible, our results suggest that it may be possible to reduce unsustainable harvest using breeder connectivity in informational campaigns to stimulate peer‐to‐peer interactions and accelerate behavior change.