Identifying Endangered Terrestrial Ecosystems

Dear Colleagues,

Terrestrial ecosystems are under unprecedented stress from human land uses and climate change. It is increasingly urgent to document and track status and trends in terrestrial ecosystems (i.e., uplands and wetlands, typically with rooted vegetation) in ways that parallel methods for documenting relative “endangerment” status for plant and animal species. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Ecosystems is one emerging global standard for ecosystem risk assessment. NatureServe Conservation Status assessment is a similar approach. Both approaches integrate rangewide data and knowledge to document the relative risk status of ecosystem types. In order to determine at-risk status, a given ecosystem type must be classified, described, and mapped. A series of measures are then applied addressing trends in ecosystem extent, the relative restricted nature of its distribution, and the relative severity of environmental degradation and disruption of biotic processes. For IUCN, all measures aim to gauge the risk of range-wide ecosystem “collapse.” Ecosystems may be assigned to the categories Collapsed (CO), Critically Endangered (CR), Endangered (EN), Vulnerable (VU), Near Threatened (NT), Least Concern (LC), Data Deficient (DD), or Not Evaluated (NE). Comparable categories exist with the NatureServe approach.

We are calling for papers that illustrate examples of these and related assessment approaches, as applied to terrestrial ecosystems. Papers could investigate methodological issues associated with these and related assessment approaches. These issues could include, but are not limited to, how ecosystem types are defined and mapped, methods and data requirements for component measures, and/or provide synthetic treatments of terrestrial ecosystems at regional, continental, or global scales.

Prof. Patrick J. Comer
Prof. Dr. Reed F. Noss
Guest Editors

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