Red List assessments of East African chameleons: a case study of why we need experts

Abstract

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species uses geographical distribution as a key criterion in assessing the conservation status of species. Accurate knowledge of a species' distribution is therefore essential to ensure the correct categorization is applied. Here we compare the geographical distribution of 35 species of chameleons endemic to East Africa, using data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and data compiled by a taxonomic expert. Data screening showed 99.9% of GBIF records used outdated taxonomy and 20% had no locality coordinates. Conversely the expert dataset used 100% up-to-date taxonomy and only seven records (3%) had no coordinates. Both datasets were used to generate range maps for each species, which were then used in preliminary Red List categorization. There was disparity in the categories of 10 species, with eight being assigned a lower threat category based on GBIF data compared with expert data, and the other two assigned a higher category. Our results suggest that before conducting desktop assessments of the threatened status of species, aggregated museum locality data should be vetted against current taxonomy and localities should be verified. We conclude that available online databases are not an adequate substitute for taxonomic experts in assessing the threatened status of species and that Red List assessments may be compromised unless this extra step of verification is carried out.

National and subnational Red Lists in European and Mediterranean countries: current state and use for conservation

“…Rather, lack of expert knowledge was identified as the principal constraint to RLTSs in these countries. Our study therefore confirms the essential role of experts for biodiversity knowledge and conservation (Miller et al 2007, Coreau 2014, Hjarding et al 2015. Respondents highlighted the need for the training of conservation experts, along with structured support from political decision makers and international organizations for the production of NRLTSs.…”

Conservation implications of protected areas’ coverage for Paraguay’s reptiles

“…It is important to note that we based our records on published papers which had made an adequate study of specimens, and we avoid the use of databases because specimens are often erroneously identified leading to incorrect interpretations of the data (Hjarding et al, 2015). Presence records were used to generate a matrix of taxa × areas (Soberón, 2015), where 'taxa' refers to any species or subspecies recorded in Paraguay, and 'areas' corresponds to the existing 55 protected areas in Paraguay.…”

On natural history collections, digitized and not: a response to Ferro and Flick

“…Data will always be of variable completeness and precision, and GBIF’s approach should be to ensure that users such as distribution modelers can easily restrict searches to data fit for their use, while not excluding other data that may still be useful for other purposes. However, taxonomists who are well aware that museum collections are rife with misidentifications and data quality issues such as collector bias (Hjarding et al 2015, Goodwin et al 2015 but see also Page 2015), should not be surprised when these issues are present in data aggregated by GBIF. Should all museums post similar warnings inside their collections?…”

“…One of the larger issues, which parallels Ferro and Flick (2015), is the lack of sharing of the expertly vetted data. Most of the NHCs from which the vetted data were obtained do not have sharing agreements with GBIF and the authors of Hjarding et al (2015) did not share the vetted data. GBIF and similar data aggregators are not going to go away.…”