Líffræðifélag Íslands - biologia.is
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2019

Erindi/veggspjald / Talk/poster V73

Monitoring of red-listed plants in Iceland: an update on the status of selected critically endangered species

Höfundar / Authors: Pawel Wasowicz (1), Starri Heiðmarsson (1), Rannveig Thoroddssen (1), Guðrún Óskarsdóttir (2), Hafdís Sturlaugsdóttir (3)

Starfsvettvangur / Affiliations: (1) Náttúrufræðistofnun Íslands, (2) Náttúrustofa Austurlands, (3) Náttúrustofa Vestfjarða

Kynnir / Presenter: Pawel Wasowicz

The loss of biodiversity is considered to be an urgent environmental problem globally. One of the measures taken by countries to counteract this damage is to document the status of rare species by creating red lists. In Iceland, the first red list of vascular plants was compiled in 1996, then updated in 2008 and last year (2018) a new edition of the vascular plant red list of Iceland was published. The highest threat category used by the IUCN red list framework is critically endangered. A species is classified as critically endangered when the best available evidence indicates that it faces an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. There are eight such species in the Icelandic flora (ca. 2% of the total flora). The poster will summarize the results of the monitoring of seven critically endangered species carried out recently (2018-2019). The current status of populations, threats and possible future scenarios will be presented and discussed.