Threatened species are any
species (including
animals,
plants and
fungi) which are vulnerable to
endangerment in the near future. Species that are threatened are sometimes characterised by the
population dynamics
Population dynamics is the type of mathematics used to model and study the size and age composition of populations as dynamical systems.
History
Population dynamics has traditionally been the dominant branch of mathematical biology, which has ...
measure of ''
critical depensation'', a mathematical measure of
biomass
Biomass is plant-based material used as a fuel for heat or electricity production. It can be in the form of wood, wood residues, energy crops, agricultural residues, and waste from industry, farms, and households. Some people use the terms bi ...
related to
population growth rate. This quantitative metric is one method of evaluating the degree of endangerment.
IUCN definition
The
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is the foremost authority on threatened species, and treats threatened species not as a single category, but as a group of three categories, depending on the degree to which they are threatened:
*
Vulnerable species
*
Endangered species
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inv ...
*
Critically endangered species
Less-than-threatened categories are
near threatened,
least concern, and the no longer assigned category of
conservation dependent
A conservation-dependent species is a species which has been categorised as "Conservation Dependent" ("LR/cd") by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), i.e. as dependent on conservation efforts to prevent it from becoming e ...
. Species which have not been evaluated (NE), or do not have sufficient data (
data deficient
A data deficient (DD) species is one which has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as offering insufficient information for a proper assessment of conservation status to be made. This does not necessaril ...
) also are not considered "threatened" by the IUCN.
Although ''threatened'' and ''vulnerable'' may be used interchangeably when discussing IUCN categories, the term ''threatened'' is generally used to refer to the three categories (critically endangered, endangered and vulnerable), while ''vulnerable'' is used to refer to the least at risk of those three categories. They may be used interchangeably in most contexts however, as all vulnerable species are threatened species (''vulnerable'' is a category of ''threatened species''); and, as the more at-risk categories of threatened species (namely ''endangered'' and ''critically endangered'') must, by definition, also qualify as vulnerable species, all threatened species may also be considered vulnerable.
Threatened species are also referred to as a
red-listed
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biologi ...
species, as they are listed in the
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biologi ...
.
Subspecies
In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...
, populations and stocks may also be classified as threatened.
By country
Australia
Federal
The
Commonwealth of Australia (federal government) has legislation for categorising and protecting endangered species, namely the ''
Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999'', which is known in short as the ''EPBC Act''. This Act has six categories: extinct, extinct in the wild, critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable, and conservation dependent, as defined in Section 179 of the Act. These could be summarised as:
*"Extinct" – "no reasonable doubt that the last member of the species has died";
*"Extinct in the wild" – "known only to survive in cultivation" and "despite exhaustive surveys" has not been seen in the wild;
*"Critically endangered" – "extremely high risk of extinction in the wild in the immediate future";
*"Endangered" – "very high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future";
*"Vulnerable" – "high risk of extinction in the wild in medium-term future"; and
*"Conservation dependent" – "focus of a specific conservation program" without which the species would enter one of the above categories.
The ''EPBC Act'' also recognises and protects threatened ecosystems such as plant communities, and
Ramsar Convention wetlands used by
migratory birds.
[
Lists of threatened species are drawn up under the Act and these lists are the primary reference to threatened species in Australia. The ''Species Profile and Threats Database'' (SPRAT) is a searchable ]online database An online database is a database accessible from a local network or the Internet, as opposed to one that is stored locally on an individual computer or its attached storage (such as a CD). Online databases are hosted on websites, made available as s ...
about species and ecological communities listed under the ''EPBC Act''. It provides information on what the species looks like, its population and distribution, habitat, movements, feeding, reproduction and taxonomic comments.
A ''Threatened Mammal Index'', publicly launched on 22 April 2020 and combined with the ''Threatened Bird Index'' (created 2018[) as the ''Threatened Species Index'', is a research collaboration of the National Environmental Science Program’s Threatened Species Recovery Hub, the University of Queensland and BirdLife Australia. It does not show detailed data of individual species, but shows overall trends, and the data can be downloaded via a web-app "to allow trends for different taxonomic groups or regions to be explored and compared".] The Index uses data visualisation tools to show data clearly in graphic form, including a graph from 1985 to present of the main index, geographical representation, monitoring consistency and time series and species accumulation. In April 2020 the Mammal Index reported that there had been a decline of more than a third of threatened mammal numbers in the 20 years between 1995 and 2016, but the data also show that targeted conservation efforts are working. The ''Threatened Mammal Index'' "is compiled from more than 400,000 individual surveys, and contains population trends for 57 of Australia's threatened or near-threatened terrestrial and marine mammal species".
States and territories
Individual states and territories of Australia
The states and territories are federated administrative divisions in Australia, ruled by regional governments that constitute the second level of governance between the federal government and local governments. States are self-governing p ...
are bound under the EPBC Act, but may also have legislation which gives further protection to certain species, for example Western Australia's '' Wildlife Conservation Act 1950''. Some species, such as Lewin's rail
Lewin's rail (''Lewinia pectoralis'') is a species of bird in the family Rallidae. It is also known as the water rail, Lewin's water rail, Lewin's grind rail, slate-breasted rail, slate-breasted water rail, pectoral rail, pectoral water rail, sho ...
(''Lewinia pectoralis''), are not listed as threatened species under the EPBC Act, but they may be recognised as threatened by individual states or territories.
Pests and weeds, climate change and habitat loss are some of the key threatening processes faced by native plants and animals listed by the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment of New South Wales.
Germany
The German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (german: Bundesamt für Naturschutz, BfN) publishes a regional Red List for Germany of at least 48000 animals and 24000 plants and fungi. The scheme for categorization is similar to that of the IUCN, but adds a "warning list", includes species endangered to an unknown extend, and rare species that are not endangered, but are highly at risk of extinction due to the small population.
Philippines
United States
Federal
Under the Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA or "The Act"; 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq.) is the primary law in the United States for protecting imperiled species. Designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of ec ...
in the United States, "threatened" is defined as "any species which is likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range". It is the less protected of the two protected categories. The Bay checkerspot butterfly (''Euphydryas editha bayensis'') is an example of a threatened subspecies protected under the Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA or "The Act"; 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq.) is the primary law in the United States for protecting imperiled species. Designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of ec ...
.
States
Within the U.S., state wildlife agencies have the authority under the ESA to manage species which are considered endangered or threatened within their state but not within all states, and which therefore are not included on the national list of endangered and threatened species. For example, the trumpeter swan (''Cygnus buccinator'') is threatened in the state of Minnesota, while large populations still remain in Canada and Alaska.
See also
* Biodiversity Action Plan
* IUCN Red List
* Illegal logging
* Rare species
* Red and blue-listed Blue-listed species are species that belong to the Blue List and includes any indigenous species or subspecies (taxa) considered to be vulnerable in their locale in order to provide early warning to federal and regional governments. Vulnerable taxa ...
* Slash-and-burn
* Threatened fauna of Australia
Notes and references
Further reading
*
{{Portal bar, Environment, Ecology, Biology
Biota by conservation status
International Union for Conservation of Nature
Environmental conservation
Ecological restoration
Population dynamics