More than 1300 species of fish are facing a “silent extinction”, according to new global research.
The researchers predict that 12.7 percent of marine teleost fish species are at risk of extinction, up fivefold from the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s prior estimate of 2.5 percent.
This equates to 1337 threatened species, including fish families which are crucial to reef ecosystems
Nicolas Loiseau and Nicolas Mouquet from the Marine Biodiversity, Exploitation and Conservation Unit in France reported the findings in a study published in the journal PLOS Biology.
The IUCN’s “Red List of Threatened Species” tracks more than 150,000 species to guide global conservation efforts on behalf of the most threatened.
Threatened species tended to have a small geographic range, large body size and low growth rate.
The extinction risk was also correlated with shallow habitats.
The South China Sea, the Philippine and Celebes Seas and the west coasts of Australia and North America were identified as hotspots for species threats.
Dr Loiseau said artificial intelligence was allowing reliable assessment of extinction risks for species that had not yet been evaluated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
“Our analysis of 13,195 marine fish species reveals that the extinction risk is significantly higher than the IUCN’s initial estimates, rising from 2.5 percent to 12.7 percent,” he said.
“We propose to incorporate recent advancements in forecasting species extinction risks into a new synthetic index called ‘predicted IUCN status’. This index can serve as a valuable complement to the current ‘measured IUCN status.’”
The full report is on the PLOS biology website.
