Richard L. Church

University of California, Santa Barbara

An “endangered” species is one that is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range

A “threatened” species is one that is likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future

There exists a formal process to list a species as threatened or endangered

1351 domestic species on the T&E list (744 plants are plants)

811 species added in the last 20 years Lawsuit has been filed to add 681 species at once

(WildEarth Guardians)2

Summary of Listed SpeciesListed

Group

United States Foreign

Total Listings(US and Foreign)

US Listings withactive Recovery Plans3

Endang. Threat. Total Endangered Threatened Total Listings

Mammals 69 12 81 256 20 276 357 56Birds 75 14 89 179 6 185 274 85Reptiles 13 24 37 66 16 82 119 38

Amphibians 13 10 23 8 1 9 32 17

Fishes 74 65 139 11 1 12 151 101Clams 62 8 70 2 0 2 72 70Snails 64 11 75 1 0 1 76 69Insects 47 10 57 4 0 4 61 35

Arachnids 12 0 12 0 0 0 12 6

Crustaceans 19 3 22 0 0 0 22 18

Corals 0 2 2 0 0 0 2 0

Animal Subtotal 448 159 607 527 44 571 1178 495

Flowering Plants

570 143 713 1 0 1 714 630

Conifers and Cycads

2 1 3 0 2 2 5 3

Ferns and Allies

24 2 26 0 0 0 26 26

Lichens 2 0 2 0 0 0 2 2

Plant Subtotal 598 146 744 1 2 3 747 661

Grand Total 1046 305 1351 528 46 574 1925 1156

as of 4/3/083

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One of many organizations that attempts to protect species of concern

Purchases land and designs protection plans throughout the world

For the US, their data set involves 2700 species of concern (imperiled or threatened)

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Where should we target protection for threatened and imperiled species?

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SSCP: species set covering SSCP: species set covering problemproblem

Minimize the number of sites chosen (hexagons) in order to represent each G1 and G2 species at least once

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The Species Set Covering Problem:The Species Set Covering Problem:

using coverage set notation

njx

mix

tosubject

xz

j

Mjj

n

jj

i

,...,2,1each for 1,0 2)

,...,2,1each for 1 1)

:

min1

More than 2700 constraints

Optimization model contains more than 4500 sites and 2700 species, thus approximately 4500 X variables and 2700 constraints

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SSCP: resultsSSCP: results

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There are regions of hot spots, California, the Clinch River basin, Hawaii, Florida, Gulf region of Mississippi and Alabama

Impacts due to Climate Change are not understood

Considerable regional-wide efforts will need to be made in order to protect species at risk.

In the next part of the talk, I will present an example for one such species, The San Joaquin Kit Fox

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