Use of local ecological knowledge, scientist's observations and grey literature to assess marine species at risk in a tropical eastern Pacific estuary

Abstract

ABSTRACT1. The loss of marine biodiversity in tropical regions of the world is a major threat to human welfare. Multiple anthropogenic drivers are responsible for this situation, with complex scenarios for coastal areas in third-world countries, where economic development often competes with conservation plans.2. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species is an influential tool for setting conservation priorities at local and regional levels. The application of IUCN criteria for assessing extinction risk, however, continues to represent a major challenge in data-poor situations present in many tropical megadiverse countries.3. To overcome these difficulties, three different data sources on invertebrates and fishes present in an estuarine system representative of the tropical eastern Pacific (TEP) region (Bahı´a Ma´laga, Colombia) have been used to establish their relative local extinction risk and correlate this information with the existing IUCN Red List categories. Data sources included (1) IUCN global and national listings, (2) traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), and (3) grey literature, scientific and natural history observations. 4. In total, 46 threatened species were evaluated after combining the three data sources. Only 17 species were previously identified as threatened by IUCN global and national listings, whereas the remaining 29 species were classified under a threatened category after evaluating TEK, grey literature and scientific information. Some of these species are seriously threatened within the estuary because of overharvesting and habitat destruction.5. Despite most of the species identified having large geographical ranges in the TEP, they may face the same threats throughout their ranges. The approach provides a useful tool to assess species extinction risk in tropical regions where resource exploitation and habitat degradation advance rapidly, making the setting of conservation priorities an urgent task.

Application of extinction risk and conservation criteria for assessing fish species in the lower La Plata River basin, South America

“…First, we recommend the incorporation of local ecological information as a routine complementary tool for assessing the likelihood of species extinction, particularly in those areas where habitat deterioration by river damming, dredging, water diversion, pollution, and fishing exploitation practices for the purpose of ornament or bait are greatly increasing. The views of fishermen are useful for detecting past species trends even before data become available (Saenz‐Arroyo et al ., ), and traditional ecological knowledge has proved to be useful for assessing population status (Silvano and Bergossi, ) as well as being applicable for marine systems having a paucity of biological and demographic information (Castellanos‐Galindo et al ., ). Such an approach would be particularly useful to detect changes in abundance.…”

Schematizing a historical demographic collapse on a large time span using local, secondary and grey data: The case of Italian roe deer Capreolus capreolus italicus in Central Italy

“…Swetnam et al 1999) greatly benefits from an analysis of grey literature to aid conservation practitioners in problem solving and decision-making applied to socio-ecological systems (e.g. Sáenz-Arroyo et al 2005;Aswani & Allen 2008;Barton et al 2010;Castellanos-Galindo et al, 2011).…”

Patterns of Coral-Reef Finfish Species Disappearances Inferred from Fishers’ Knowledge in Global Epicentre of Marine Shorefish Diversity

“…This paper contributes to the growing evidence for dramatic declines of vulnerable reef fish species in a highly species-rich but data-depauperate setting [ 30 , 35 , 38 , 88 ]. Fishers’ knowledge provides evidence of local extinction vulnerability of many finfish species [ 24 , 28 , 32 , 33 , 37 , 79 , 130 – 132 ] and the links of this to life-history traits [ 27 , 44 – 49 ], overexploitation [ 27 , 43 , 44 ] and socio-economic drivers [ 50 , 51 ] of depletions. Our robust modelling [ 31 , 133 – 135 ] of these data is novel for this global epicentre of coastal species diversity and highlights the value of fishers’ knowledge in providing evidence for declines in vulnerable species in abundances at large spatial and temporal scales.…”