Two key problems in trying to link rarity to extinction risk have been conflating threats with risk factors, and over-reliance on a rarity construct that fails to capture many relevant risk factors. In this study, we disentangle threats from risk factors and show how their interaction can be used to predict extinction risk. We also investigate the sensitivity of rarity classifications to various thresholds, including biologically meaningful ones. We use the 168 species of North American firefly beetles (Coleoptera: Lampyridae) as our focal family to examine rarity classifications, and to illustrate the importance of clearly distinguishing between risk factors and threats in evaluating extinction risk. Our results show that, beyond rarity, fireflies exhibit numerous risk factors, including diet specialization, poor dispersal ability, light-based mating signals, symbiotic associations, and behaviors that can result in Allee effects, that make them susceptible to various global threats. This suggests that, for this group and perhaps other taxa, rarity type cannot be used as a surrogate for extinction risk. By identifying threats and risk factors and clearly distinguishing between them, this study should facilitate future assessments of extinction risk for this family, and the approach could be used for other taxa.

中文翻译：

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将稀有性的七种形式与灭绝威胁和危险因素联系起来：对北美萤火虫的评估

试图将稀有性与灭绝风险联系起来的两个关键问题是将威胁与风险因素混为一谈，以及过分依赖无法捕获许多相关风险因素的稀有性构造。在这项研究中，我们将威胁与危险因素区分开，并说明如何将它们的相互作用用于预测灭绝风险。我们还研究了稀有分类对各种阈值（包括生物学上有意义的阈值）的敏感性。我们使用北美萤火虫甲虫（Coleoptera：Lampyridae）的168种作为我们的重点科，以检查稀有性类别，并说明在评估灭绝风险中明确区分风险因素和威胁的重要性。我们的结果表明，萤火虫除罕见外，还表现出多种危险因素，包括饮食专业化，分散能力差，基于光的交配信号，共生关联和行为会导致Allee效应，使它们容易受到各种全球威胁的影响。这表明，对于这个群体甚至其他类群，稀有类型不能用作灭绝风险的替代物。通过识别威胁和风险因素并清楚地区分它们，这项研究应有助于将来对该家庭的灭绝风险进行评估，该方法可用于其他生物分类。