Avaliação nacional do risco de extinção das espécies de Malvaceae ocorrentes na Área de Preservação Ambiental (APA) do Marituba do Peixe (AL)

Abstract

The conservation of biodiversity represents one of the greatest challenges due to the high level of anthropogenic disturbances to natural ecosystems. Consequently, the rate of extinction is greater than the rate of discovery of new species by science, resulting in an underrepresentation of the world’s biota. In Brazil, CNCFlora is the organization responsible for assessing the extinction risk of known species of the national flora, using the categories and criteria of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. Although well-established in the scientific community, the assessment process proposed by the IUCN can be considered challenging and time-consuming, requiring a large amount of data for evaluation and documentation of extinction risk, making it difficult for many specialists to utilize. There is a need for new approaches and automated tools for a faster and more efficient assessment that provides more representative lists of threatened species at the regional level. This study aimed to evaluate the conservation status of species in the Malvaceae family that had not yet been assessed by CNCFlora, occurring in the Environmental Protection Area (APA) of Marituba do Peixe, following IUCN criteria. The species found in the area were surveyed through collection expeditions and consultation of the Specieslink and Virtual Herbarium Reflora platforms. Of the 19 species occurring in the area, 13 had not yet been assessed. For these, occurrence records were obtained using GBIF and Specieslink, data cleaning was performed in RStudio (bdc package), and values for applying IUCN Criterion B were obtained using GeoCAT. As a general result, one species was classified as “Critically Endangered,” two as “Endangered,” three as “Near Threatened,” six as “Least Concern,” and one as “Not Applicable.” Preliminary extinction risk assessments, like those presented in this study, can be applied to various botanical groups, contributing to the conservation of Brazilian flora species.