Departamento de Botánica, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales & Oceanográficas, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile.
Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity (IEB), Concepción, Chile.
Conserv Biol. 2024 Oct;38(5):e14353. doi: 10.1111/cobi.14353.
In this era of a global biodiversity crisis, vascular plants are facing unprecedented extinction rates. We conducted an assessment of the extinction risk of 32 species and 7 subspecies of Copiapoa, a genus endemic to Chile's fog-dependent coastal Atacama Desert. We applied the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List Categories and Criteria enhanced by expert insights and knowledge. Our primary aim was to analyze the impact of trade and poaching on their extinction risk. We employed machine learning models, including multinomial logistic regression (MLR), decision tree (DT), and random forest (RF), to analyze the relationships between conservation status and various factors. These factors encompassed trade and poaching activities, landscape condition, human footprint, monthly cloud frequency, and biological traits such as evolutionary distinctiveness and maximum diameter. Seven taxa had an area of occupancy (AOO) of <10 km, 10 additional taxa had an AOO of <20 km, and 16 taxa had an AOO of ≤100 km. This reassessment exposed a critical level of extinction risk for the genus; 92% of the taxa were classified as threatened, 41% as critically endangered, 41% as endangered, and 10% as vulnerable. MLR, DT, and RF exhibited accuracies of 0.784, 0.730, and 0.598, respectively, and identified trade and poaching pressure and landscape condition as the primary drivers of extinction risk. Our assessment of Copiapoa showed trade, poaching, habitat degradation, and their synergic impacts as the main drivers of the genus' extinction risk. Our results highlight the urgent need for nations to develop and enforce strategies to monitor and control trade and poaching pressure because these factors are crucial for the long-term persistence of desert plants.
在全球生物多样性危机的时代，维管植物正面临着前所未有的灭绝速度。我们对智利雾依赖型沿海阿塔卡马沙漠特有的 Copiapoa 属的 32 个物种和 7 个亚种的灭绝风险进行了评估。我们应用了国际自然保护联盟（IUCN）红色名录类别和标准，并结合了专家的见解和知识。我们的主要目的是分析贸易和偷猎对它们灭绝风险的影响。我们使用了机器学习模型，包括多项逻辑回归（MLR）、决策树（DT）和随机森林（RF），来分析保护状况与各种因素之间的关系。这些因素包括贸易和偷猎活动、景观状况、人类足迹、每月云频率以及进化独特性和最大直径等生物特征。有 7 个分类单元的分布区面积（AOO）<10km，10 个额外的分类单元的 AOO<20km，16 个分类单元的 AOO≤100km。这次重新评估揭示了该属面临的严重灭绝风险；92%的分类单元被列为受威胁，41%为极危，41%为濒危，10%为脆弱。MLR、DT 和 RF 的准确率分别为 0.784、0.730 和 0.598，它们确定贸易和偷猎压力以及景观状况是灭绝风险的主要驱动因素。我们对 Copiapoa 的评估表明，贸易、偷猎、生境退化以及它们的协同影响是该属灭绝风险的主要驱动因素。我们的研究结果强调了各国制定和实施监测和控制贸易和偷猎压力策略的紧迫性，因为这些因素对沙漠植物的长期生存至关重要。
