title: The sampled Red List Index for plants, phase II: ground-truthing specimen-based conservation assessments.
abstract: The IUCN Sampled Red List Index (SRLI) is a policy response by biodiversity scientists to the need to estimate trends in extinction risk of the world's diminishing biological diversity. Assessments of plant species for the SRLI project rely predominantly on herbarium specimen data from natural history collections, in the overwhelming absence of accurate population data or detailed distribution maps for the vast majority of plant species. This creates difficulties in re-assessing these species so as to measure genuine changes in conservation status, which must be observed under the same Red List criteria in order to be distinguished from an increase in the knowledge available for that species, and thus re-calculate the SRLI. However, the same specimen data identify precise localities where threatened species have previously been collected and can be used to model species ranges and to target fieldwork in order to test specimen-based range estimates and collect population data for SRLI plant species. Here, we outline a strategy for prioritizing fieldwork efforts in order to apply a wider range of IUCN Red List criteria to assessments of plant species, or any taxa with detailed locality or natural history specimen data, to produce a more robust estimation of the SRLI.
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, South Kensington, London SW7 5BD, UK n.brummitt@nhm.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Neil
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Brummitt
authors.affiliation: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 3AB, UK.
authors.forename: Steven P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Bachman
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, South Kensington, London SW7 5BD, UK King's College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK.
authors.forename: Elina
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Aletrari
authors.affiliation: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 3AB, UK.
authors.forename: Helen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Chadburn
authors.affiliation: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 3AB, UK.
authors.forename: Janine
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Griffiths-Lee
authors.affiliation: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 3AB, UK.
authors.forename: Maiko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lutz
authors.affiliation: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 3AB, UK.
authors.forename: Justin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Moat
authors.affiliation: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 3AB, UK School of Biology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9TH, UK.
authors.forename: Malin C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Rivers
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, South Kensington, London SW7 5BD, UK Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
authors.forename: Mindy M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Syfert
authors.affiliation: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 3AB, UK.
authors.forename: Eimear M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Nic Lughadha
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D003710:Demography; D005544:Forecasting; D062305:Geographic Mapping; D010944:Plants; D013045:Species Specificity
keywords: IUCN Red List; Plants; Sampled Red List Index; conservation assessments; ground-truthing