Extinction rate of discovered and undiscovered plants in Singapore |
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Authors: | Nadiah P Kristensen Wei Wei Seah Kwek Yan Chong Yi Shuen Yeoh Tak Fung Laura M Berman Hui Zhen Tan Ryan A Chisholm |
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Institution: | 1. Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, 16 Science Drive 4, Singapore, 117558 Singapore;2. Singapore Botanic Gardens, Herbarium Singapore, 1 Cluny Road, Singapore, 259569 Singapore;3. National Parks Board, Horticulture and Community Gardening Division, 1 Cluny Road, Singapore, 259569 Singapore;4. Division of Science, Yale-NUS College, 16 College Avenue West, Singapore, 138527 Singapore |
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Abstract: | Extinction is a key issue in the assessment of global biodiversity. However, many extinction rate measures do not account for species that went extinct before they could be discovered. The highly developed island city–state of Singapore has one of the best-documented tropical floras in the world. This allowed us to estimate the total rate of floristic extinctions in Singapore since 1822 after accounting for sampling effort and crypto extinctions by collating herbaria records. Our database comprised 34,224 specimens from 2076 native species, of which 464 species (22%) were considered nationally extinct. We assumed that undiscovered species had the same annual per-species extinction rates as discovered species and that no undiscovered species remained extant. With classical and Bayesian algorithms, we estimated that 304 (95% confidence interval, 213–414) and 412 (95% credible interval, 313–534) additional species went extinct before they could be discovered, respectively; corresponding total extinction rate estimates were 32% and 35% (range 30–38%). We detected violations of our 2 assumptions that could cause our extinction estimates, particularly the absolute numbers, to be biased downward. Thus, our estimates should be treated as lower bounds. Our results illustrate the possible magnitudes of plant extirpations that can be expected in the tropics as development continues. |
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Keywords: | biodiversity loss generalized fiducial inference historical extinctions inferred extinctions Southeast Asia species-area relationship undescribed extinctions undescribed species especies no descritas extinciones históricas extinciones inferidas extinciones no descritas inferencia generalizada de referencia pérdida de biodiversidad relación especie-área sureste de Asia 生物多样性丧失 广义置信推断 历史灭绝 推断的灭绝 东南亚 物种-面积关系 未描述的灭绝 未描述的物种 处死控制 社会认同的方法 野生动物管理 |
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