The assessment of species conservation status traditionally relies on population data. In the absence of such data, biological attributes have been applied to predict the degree of species’ vulnerability. Our study investigated the accuracy of biological attributes to predict species’ vulnerability to extinction by contrasting matches and mismatches between threat predictions and the conservation status of reef fish species in the Brazilian Red List of Threatened Species. We further analyzed the patterns of distribution of threatened species under different attribute categories. The proportion of matches were higher for Elasmobranchii (92%), habitat specialists (88%) and highly mobile species (81%). Also, other attributes as macrocarnivorous and mobile invertivore-based diets, habitat intermediate-generalists, and large body size had over 70% of match in predictions. Fifty-six Brazilian reef fish species share these attributes but are not listed as threatened, which makes them even more vulnerable to future extinctions. Higher proportions of threatened species presenting these biological attributes were found in southeast Brazil (states of Espírito Santo and São Paulo). Our study has revealed that biological attributes may serve as an alternative tool to predict reef fish species vulnerability.

传统上，物种保护状况的评估依赖于种群数据。在没有此类数据的情况下，已将生物学属性用于预测物种的脆弱性程度。我们的研究通过对比威胁预测与巴西濒危物种红色名录中礁鱼物种的保护状态之间的匹配和不匹配，研究了生物学特性预测物种灭绝脆弱性的准确性。我们进一步分析了不同属性类别下受威胁物种的分布模式。中华绒螯蟹（92％），栖息地专家（88％）和高迁移物种（81％）的比赛比例更高。此外，其他特征还包括大型食肉动物和以食肉动物为食的移动饮食，栖息地中医，而且大身材在预测中具有超过70％的匹配率。有56种巴西礁鱼具有这些特征，但没有被列为受威胁物种，这使它们更容易受到未来灭绝的威胁。在巴西东南部（埃斯皮里图桑托州和圣保罗州），发现具有这些生物学特性的受威胁物种的比例更高。我们的研究表明，生物学特性可以作为预测珊瑚鱼物种脆弱性的替代工具。