Today the conservation assessment database (that probably needs a snappier title) took a giant leap forward with the addition of 7,456 assessments of legumes. This data came from ILDIS (International Legume Database Information Service), which recently came to my attention thanks to resident Leguminosae expert - Lulu Rico. The previous website stopped functioning a while back, but now it seems to have re-appeared in a new format: ILDIS.
Along with information on distribution, habit, lifespan and vernacular names, it also includes conservation status for many of the species. Inclusion of the ILDIS assessments brought the total to 9,970 assessments and I couldn't resist adding in a few from Kew Bulletin (Volume 58, part 2) and Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society (Volume 147, part 5) to take it over the 10,000 threshold (10,005 and counting..).
So what do 10,000 plant assessments tell us about global threat status of plants? Well, with an estimated total count of 380,000 plants we can only draw limited conclusions. The recent addition of assessments gives is a very 'legume' skew, but it is still interesting to take a look at the stats anyway. Just for context, that figure of 10,000 is about the same as all species of birds, so you can see the scale of the task to just get a baseline for plants.
Using the triage grouping we can see that 8.5% are rated as 'Threatened'.
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| Black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) at Kew Gardens |
So what do 10,000 plant assessments tell us about global threat status of plants? Well, with an estimated total count of 380,000 plants we can only draw limited conclusions. The recent addition of assessments gives is a very 'legume' skew, but it is still interesting to take a look at the stats anyway. Just for context, that figure of 10,000 is about the same as all species of birds, so you can see the scale of the task to just get a baseline for plants.
Using the triage grouping we can see that 8.5% are rated as 'Threatened'.
Grouping of all assessments in the database as of 8th March 2013
Looking at the progress chart below you can see the new peak for 2010 with the addition of the ILDIS legume assessments. The assessments were more likely to be accumulated over several years, but there is no way to find that out, so they are going in the database as 2010 because that was the latest update of the database. Good progress for March!
Progress in assessments against the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) Target 2
