Abstract

Identification of conservation priorities is essential for conservation planning, especially as the biodiversity crisis develops. We aimed to support conservation prioritisation by addressing knowledge gaps for the genus Aloe in the Horn of Africa. Specifically, we developed a dataset of herbarium voucher specimens and occurrence data to estimate geographic distribution of 88 species of Aloe and used this to estimate extinction risk and establish the major threats to Aloe in this region. The resulting assessments, each published on the IUCN Red List, show that 39% of the species are threatened with extinction, and the principal threats are the expansion and intensification of crop farming and livestock farming, gathering of plants, and unintentional effects of logging and wood harvesting. We review ex situ conservation in botanic gardens and seed banks, revealing gaps in coverage and urgent priorities for collection, with 25 threatened Aloe species currently unrepresented in seed banks. Protected areas in the region offer limited coverage of Aloe distributions and the most recently designated protected areas are increasingly in regions that do not overlap with Aloe distributions. However, we show with a simple optimisation approach that even a modest increase in protected area of 824 square kilometres would allow representation of all Aloe species, although further data are needed to test the area required to ensure long-term persistence (resilience) of Aloe species.

中文翻译：

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非洲之角芦荟（Asphodelaceae）的灭绝风险和保护缺口

摘要

确定保护重点对于保护规划至关重要，尤其是随着生物多样性危机的发展。我们旨在通过解决非洲之角芦荟属的知识鸿沟来支持优先保护工作。具体来说，我们开发了一个植物标本室凭证样本和发生数据的数据集，以估计88种芦荟的地理分布，并以此估计灭绝风险并确定对芦荟的主要威胁在这个地区。最终发表在《自然保护联盟红色名录》上的评估结果表明，有39％的物种面临灭绝的威胁，主要威胁是农作物和畜牧业的扩大和集约化，植物的采集以及伐木和砍伐的无意影响。木材采伐。我们回顾了植物园和种子库中的非原生境保护，揭示了覆盖范围方面的差距和收集工作的紧迫重点，目前种子库中没有25种受威胁的芦荟物种。该地区的保护区覆盖的芦荟分布有限，最近指定的保护区越来越多，与芦荟不重叠分布。但是，我们通过简单的优化方法表明，即使将保护面积略微增加到824平方公里，也可以代表所有芦荟物种，尽管还需要进一步的数据来测试确保芦荟的长期持久性（恢复力）所需的面积种类。