Of all 14,669 varieties of plants and animals found in Europe that were registered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature\u2019s\u00a0Red List\u00a0of Threatened Species by the end of 2020, one-fifth of them face the risk of\u00a0extinction, a new analysis has found. <\/p>\n
Researchers also determined the largest threat associated with Europe\u2019s declining biodiversity was changes in agricultural land use, which result in habitat loss and overexploitation of biological resources, according to a\u00a0news release for the study published Wednesday in\u00a0the\u00a0journal Plos One. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe thought it would be good to combine all these data to see \u2026 what are the major threats? Where are the regions where the most threatened species occur?\u201d said lead study author\u00a0Axel Hochkirch,\u00a0head of the department of ecology at the National Museum of Natural History in Luxembourg. \u201cBecause only if we know the threats, we can do something about it.\u201d <\/p>\n
The IUCN Red List is considered the most comprehensive global source for threatened species and extinction information, and Europe has the most data included out of all regions represented in the index, Hochkirch said. The thousands of species found in Europe that appear on the Red List account for nearly 10% of the continent\u2019s total biodiversity, according to the paper. <\/p>\n
The index categorizes species by those that are of least concern, near threatened, vulnerable, endangered, critically endangered and extinct. In their analysis, researchers found 19% of all Red List species found in Europe \u2014 including 27% of plants, 24% of invertebrates and 18% vertebrates \u2014 to be \u201cat risk of extinction.\u201d\u00a0
The at-risk species could be found among the Red List\u2019s vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered categories. <\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the most interesting findings of the study is that plants and invertebrates are more endangered than vertebrates,\u201d said Gerardo Ceballos, a professor at the Institute of Ecology at National Autonomous University of Mexico and one of the world\u2019s leading ecologists, in an email. Ceballos was not involved in the study. <\/p>\n
A\u00a02019 global assessment\u00a0by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, or IPBES, estimated that \u2014 based on \u201csparse data\u201d available for insects \u2014 10% of all insects across the world were threatened with extinction, according to the new study. But Hochkirch and his team found more than double that number of invertebrates at risk in Europe. <\/p>\n
It is estimated that 95% of animals in the world are invertebrates, and 73% are insects,\u00a0according to the IUCN. <\/p>\n
IPBES originally estimated that 1 million plant and animal species across the world were at risk of extinction, including about half a million insect varieties, based on inferences from Red List data. The data on invertebrates provided by the new analysis suggests the number of species threatened with extinction globally is actually closer to 2 million, Hochkirch said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an interesting paper showing once again, that the extinction crisis is more severe than previously thought,\u201d Ceballos said. <\/p>\n
Besides agricultural land use, the analysis found several other major threats to Europe\u2019s biodiversity, including pollution, climate change and severe weather, invasive species, and residential and commercial development. <\/p>\n
The analysis reinforces the greater impact that agriculture has on global biodiversity, said\u00a0Dr. David Williams, a lecturer on sustainability and the environment at the University of Leeds in the UK. He was not involved in the study. <\/p>\n
\u201cAgriculture primarily threatens biodiversity through expansion into natural habitats and intensification (increase in productivity). \u2026 The problem is that we cannot simultaneously reduce expansion and reduce intensification, because doing either of them (let alone both) will reduce the amount of food produced,\u201d Williams said in an email. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo what should Europe do? How do we safeguard the region\u2019s biodiversity without simply offshoring the biodiversity cost of our food production? \u2026\u00a0\u00a0It is a very clear next question,\u201d he said. Williams was the lead author of\u00a0a 2020 study\u00a0that found nearly 90% of land animals\u00a0<\/strong>could be affected by loss of habitat by 2050 due to growing agriculture. <\/p>\n Hochkirch said he hopes the analysis will spur further conservation action for insects and other threatened species in Europe. <\/p>\n\n Of all 14,669 varieties of plants and animals found in Europe that were registered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature\u2019s\u00a0Red List\u00a0of Threatened Species by the end of 2020, one-fifth of them face the risk of\u00a0extinction, a new analysis has found. Researchers also determined the largest threat associated with Europe\u2019s declining biodiversity was changes <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11358,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}