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Out-of-date datasets hamper conservation of species close to extinction

Nature Plants volume 8, pages 1370–1373 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

International databases and data aggregators on species conservation status are powerful tools supporting the efforts of conservation biologists and practitioners in reducing the loss of biodiversity. However, out-of-date information and poor interoperability of databases can hamper conservation of highly threatened species or in extreme cases can result in their removal from conservation frameworks. Lack of common standards for database updates, slow update timing and incongruencies among datasets in terms of taxonomy, threats, conservation status and holding prevent proper conservation prioritization and actions. A simple survey to solve incongruencies between the BGCI PlantSearch Database and the IUCN Red List resulted in a change of status of 16 plant species, including the ‘rehabilitation’ of 12 species thought to be extinct.

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Data availability

All data used in this article are included in Table 1 and in Supplementary Table 1.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all botanic gardens that provided useful data for this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Science, Roma Tre University, Roma, Italy

    Thomas Abeli & Giulia Albani Rocchetti

  2. Botanic Gardens Conservation International, Richmond, UK

    Suzanne Sharrock

Authors
  1. Thomas Abeli
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  2. Suzanne Sharrock
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  3. Giulia Albani Rocchetti
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Contributions

T.A. and G.A.R. conceived the idea and wrote the manuscript. S.S. provided BGCI data and wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Thomas Abeli.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Plants thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Abeli, T., Sharrock, S. & Albani Rocchetti, G. Out-of-date datasets hamper conservation of species close to extinction. Nat. Plants 8, 1370–1373 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-022-01293-w

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