A new Red Book supplement prepared by the Spanish Plant Conservation Society

Abstract

The ‘Guidelines for the monitoring and evaluation of the conservation status of threatened and of special protection species in Spain’ were jointly approved in 2012 by the national and regional governments. This document prescribes the monitoring of 289 vascular plants protected in Spain, either because are included in the Annexes of the Habitats Directive (HD), or because they belong to the Spanish Catalog of Endangered Species. A large part of these plants are local endemics or inhabit a single Spanish area, so regional environmental services are in charge of their study. However, 74 taxa are distributed across several regions (Autonomous Communities), so the responsibility for their monitoring lies with the Spanish ministry. The Spanish Society of Plant Conservation Biology (SEBICOP) groups together 250 researchers, managers and institutions (botanic gardens), and forms a network of specialists in conservation biology disseminated throughout the country. This scientific society was constituted in 2002 and has carried out the elaboration of the Red Data Book and its addenda, as well as the two Red Lists published so far. During the 2016-17 period, SEBICOP was in charge of the project for the evaluation and monitoring of such 74 species of disjunct distribution, for instance aquatic plants present in several river basins. For this purpose, 24 work teams (universities, research institutes, local botanists) were coordinated to the assessment of the conservation status of these taxa, many included in the HD Annexes and deeply studied for the first time -in case of plants of less concern or conservation urgency-. The work carried out has produced many surprises regarding previous available information, with some species more threatened than was published in the last Red List (2008), but a larger number in which their risk categories were downgraded. In total, IUCN categories were endorsed as follow: 5 CR, 18 EN, 16 VU, 18 NT, 16 LC, and 1 NE. Results of the project include a refined methodology for future monitoring phases, prepare a new addendum to the Spanish Red Book to be published in 2018, and serve as the basis for the next Spanish report on state of conservation for several species in the following sexennial report of the HD. Fixed plots have been installed and georeferenced to resampling the status of studied populations every 3-6 years.