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Assessing the global conservation status of the rock rose Helianthemum caput-felis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2019

Elena Sulis
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e dell'Ambiente, Centro Conservazione Biodiversità, Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy
Gianluigi Bacchetta
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e dell'Ambiente, Centro Conservazione Biodiversità, Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy
Donatella Cogoni*
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e dell'Ambiente, Centro Conservazione Biodiversità, Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy
Domenico Gargano
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Biologia, Ecologia e Scienze della Terra, Università della Calabria, Arcavacata, Italy
Giuseppe Fenu
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e dell'Ambiente, Centro Conservazione Biodiversità, Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy
*
(Corresponding author) E-mail d.cogoni@unica.it
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Abstract

The assessment of the conservation status of a species is the first step in developing a conservation strategy. IUCN Red Lists assessments are an important starting point for conservation actions and the most commonly applied method for assessing the extinction risk of a species. In this study, the global conservation status of the rock rose Helianthemum caput-felis Boiss. (Cistaceae), a perennial Mediterranean plant, was evaluated using the Red List criteria. The distribution of the species was determined by monitoring historical localities and all other suitable sites along the western Mediterranean coasts for 6 years. For each confirmed locality, the ecological and population parameters and the main threats were recorded; these data were used in a quantitative analysis of the species' extinction risk. Our findings indicate there have been several recent extinctions, and there is a continuing decline in the species' area of occurrence, habitat quality and number of reproductive plants. The main threats are related to human activities. Extinction models indicate a probability of quasi-extinction risk of c. 30% in five generations or c. 45% in three generations, with the species likely to become extinct in seven currently known localities within the next 10 years. Application of the Red List criteria indicates H. caput-felis should be categorized as Endangered. This study confirms that legal protection and passive conservation measures are insufficient to guarantee the persistence of a plant species. Active conservation and management actions are needed to protect this and other threatened species of the Mediterranean Basin.

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Copyright © Fauna & Flora International 2019
Figure 0

Table 1 Localities of Helianthemum caput-felis surveyed in this study, with altitudinal range, area, mean density ± SD, population size, whether seedlings were present, protection status, current status, source and the main threats (IUCN, 2012b). Localities in bold are those selected for study of detailed population dynamics (Sulis et al., 2018).

Figure 1

Fig. 1 Number of localities subject to each of the main threats (Table 1) to the rock rose Helianthemum caput-felis populations; data for Algeria was obtained from Agulló et al. (2017).

Figure 2

Fig. 2 Simulated cumulative distribution functions of the number of years for populations of H. caput-felis to reach a quasi-extinction threshold of 20 individuals: a, three generations (integral projection model); b, five generations (integral projection model); c, three generations based on generation time from the matrix population model. The lines are separate estimates of the cumulative distribution of extinction probabilities based on 500 iterations of population growth over 100 years (see Stubben & Milligan, 2007 for further details).

Figure 3

Fig. 3 Extent of Occurrence (EOO) calculated for H. caput-felis.

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