The IUCN Red List plays a key role in setting global conservation priorities and is populated via rigorous, time-intensive assessments. Here, we test rapid preliminary assessments of plant extinction risk using one Red List metric: Extent of Occurrence (EOO). We developed REBA (Rapid EOO-Based Assessment) to harvest and clean data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, calculate each species' EOO and assign EOO-based Red List categories. We validated REBA classifications against 1671 North American plant species already on the Red List and found ~87% overlap between REBA's classifications and the IUCN's. However, REBA's false-negative rate for species outside the Least Concern category was substantial (~68%). To elucidate factors that might drive such a high rate of under-classification, we used hierarchical Bayesian models to show that certain plant types (e.g., Geophytes) and threats (e.g., Invasive and Other Problematic Species, Genes, and Diseases) increased the probability of under-classification. While REBA requires further refinement, it has yielded valuable insight into how preliminary assessment methodologies may become more effective.
The IUCN Red List plays a key role in setting global conservation priorities. Species are added to the Red List through a rigorous assessment process that, while robust, can be quite time-intensive. Here, we test the rapid preliminary assessment of plant species extinction risk using a single Red List metric: Extent of Occurrence (EOO). To do so, we developed REBA (Rapid EOO-Based Assessment), a workflow that harvests and cleans data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), calculates each species' EOO, and assigns Red List categories based on that metric. We validated REBA results against 1,546 North American plant species already on the Red List and found ~90% overlap between REBA's rapid classifications and those of full IUCN assessments. Our preliminary workflow can be used to quickly evaluate data deficient Red List species or those in need of reassessment, and can prioritize unevaluated species for a full assessment.
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