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‘Classics’ is a category of posts highlighting research that has made a real difference to biodiversity conservation. All posts in this category will be permanently displayed on the Classics page of ConservationBytes.com

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Mace, G.M. & Lande, R. (1991). Assessing extinction threats: toward a re-evaluation of IUCN threatened species categories. Conservation Biology, 51, 148-157.

I was recently fortunate enough to have the chance to speak with Georgina Mace, current president of the Society for Conservation Biology, to ask her which was the defining paper behind the hugely influential IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. There is little doubt that the Red List has been one of the most influential conservation policy tools constructed. Used as the global standard for the assessment of threat (i.e., extinction risk) for now > 40000 species, the Red List is the main tool by which most people judge the status, extinction risk, and recovery potential of threatened species worldwide. Far from complete (e.g., it covers about 2 % of described species), the Red List is an evolving and improving assessment by the world’s best experts. It has become very much more than just a ‘list’.

Indeed, it is used often in the conservation ecology literature as a proxy for extinction risk (although see post on Minimum Viable Population size for some counter-arguments to that idea). We’ve used it that way ourselves in several recent papers (see below), and there are plenty of other examples. From extinction theory to policy implementation, Mace & Lande’s contribution to biodiversity conservation via the Red List was a major step forward.

See also:

• Bradshaw, CJA, X Giam, HTW Tan, BW Brook, NS Sodhi. 2008. Threat or invasive status in legumes is related to opposite extremes of the same ecological and life-history attributes. Journal of Ecology 96: 869-883
• Sodhi, NS, D Bickford, AC Diesmos, TM Lee, LP Koh, BW Brook, CH Sekercioglu, CJA Bradshaw. 2008. Measuring the meltdown: drivers of global amphibian extinction and decline. PLoS One 3(2): e1636
• Sodhi, NS, LP Koh, KS-H Peh, HTW Tan, RL Chazdon, RT Corlett, TM Lee, RK Colwell, BW Brook, CH Sekercioglu, CJA Bradshaw. 2008. Correlates of extinction proneness in tropical angiosperms. Diversity and Distributions 14: 1-10
• Brook, BW, LW Traill, CJA Bradshaw. 2006. Minimum viable population size and global extinction risk are unrelated. Ecology Letters 9: 375-382

CJA Bradshaw