While the amount of pollution and stress in environment is increasing, we can find that certain species of microbes are disappearing from the ecosystem rather adopting a ecotype or ecophene model commonly found in plants. In this contexts why can't IUCN create a threatened list for microbes specially phytoplankton as they are the primary producer in an aquatic ecosystem as the changes of them can affect that food chain as a whole.
Please comment on.
Greetings!
ANILA AJAYAN
Dear Anila,
Your question is very important. But a lot of other groups are not included in IUCN list like all acelomate and pseudocelomate.
Dear Anila,
Your question is very important. But a lot of other groups are not included in IUCN list like all acelomate and pseudocelomate.
I agree with Jose Answer because also radiate and porifera are not included in UICN list.
This is a critical observation, as Jose noted. And there is something of what we Americans call a catch-22. This involves the Taxonomic Impediment. That is, there are fewer and fewer taxonomists in the world, which means fewer and fewer people to act as advocates for particular taxa. And with the loss of taxonomic expertise, it is unlikely that the unknown diversity of groups already lacking "champions" will be documented sufficiently for it to make it to the IUCN or other listing services. Given that the notion of the critical nature of the Taxonomic Impediment has been known for more than 30 years now, and nothing positive has happened, I do not believe this situation will change. So, we are left hoping that the few taxa for which we have a lot of information and specialists to champion them will be sufficient tokens for us to help save substantial amounts of the under-represented diversity.
On a more positive note, I would say that many of the under-represented groups have survived for a very long time on this planet, and perhaps we can take hope from that.
dan
Greetings to all...
What I got the reply from IUCN Authorities through an email reply was , they just do not assess micro-organisms on the IUCN Red List as the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria are not appropriate to apply to these species. To assess the extinction risk of a species they apply the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria. The IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria are a set of quantitative criteria designed to place a species within a category of threat related to its extinction risk. These quantitative criteria use data on total population size, population size reductions, geographic range size and/or quantitative analyses, in combination with information on the biology of the species (e.g. generation length) and the nature of the threats facing the species. http://cmsdocs.s3.amazonaws.com/keydocuments/Categories_and_Criteria_en_web%2Bcover%2Bbckcover.pdf
& From the document it can be inferred that none of these criteria and their related thresholds would be appropriate to assess the extinction risk of micro-organisms. Therefore, a different system would need to be developed.
Thanks a lot!
ANILA AJAYAN
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