Alister Doyle Reuters Yahoo News 1 Sep 12;
OSLO (Reuters) - The vital tasks carried out by tiny "engineers" like earthworms that recycle waste and bees that pollinate crops are under threat because one fifth of the world's spineless creatures may be at risk of extinction, a study showed on Friday.
The rising human population is putting ever more pressure on the "spineless creatures that rule the world" including slugs, spiders, jellyfish, lobsters, corals, and bugs such as beetles and butterflies, it said.
"One in five invertebrates (creatures without a backbone) look to be threatened with extinction," said Ben Collen at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) of an 87-page report produced with the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
"The invertebrates are the eco-system engineers," he told Reuters. "They produce a lot of the things that humans rely on and they produce them for free."
The report said that invertebrates, creatures that have no internal skeleton, faced loss of habitat, pollution, over-exploitation and climate change.
The 'services' they provide - helping humans whose growing numbers threaten their survival - include water purification, pollination, waste recycling, and keeping soils productive. The value of insect pollination of crops, for instance, has been valued at 153 billion euros ($191 billion) a year, it said.
A 1997 study put the global economic value of soil biodiversity - thanks to often scorned creatures such as worms, woodlice and beetles - at $1.5 trillion a year.
ROMAN EMPERORS
Other services include seafood from mussels and clams, silk spun by worms and the purple dyes from a type of snail that were used exclusively in the robes of Roman emperors.
The study said the level of threat was similar to that facing vertebrates - creatures with internal skeletons - including mammals like blue whales and lions as well as reptiles and birds. A 2010 IUCN study found that one fifth of vertebrates were at risk.
Collen said people have wrongly tended to ignore spineless creatures, thinking of them as small, abundant and invulnerable to human pressures. Until now, conservation spending has focused on high-profile species such as eagles, tigers and polar bears.
"This report tries to put invertebrates on the map," he said. Invertebrates make up almost 80 percent of the world's species.
The report focused on the current state of the planet. The projected increase in the world's human population to 9 billion by 2050 from 7 billion now and other factors such as man-made climate change could make things worse for invertebrates.
The report, which assessed 12,000 species in the IUCN's Red List of endangered species, called for a switch to "green accounting" to ensure that the benefits of services provided by small creatures are built into national accounts such as GDP.
($1 = 0.8001 euros)
(Reporting By Alister Doyle, editing by Tim Pearce)
'Spineless' animals under threat of extinction
Ella Davies BBC Nature 31 Aug 12;
A fifth of animals without backbones could be at risk of extinction, say scientists.
Almost 80% of the world's species are invertebrates, meaning they lack a spinal column.
Reviewing over 12,000 species known to be threatened, biologists found that freshwater ones are most at risk.
Researchers urged for comprehensive studies of those vulnerable, to help inform conservation and protect species.
Human pressures, ranging from habitat disruption to increased temperatures, were key concerns according to the report published by the Zoological Society of London.
"We knew that roughly one fifth of vertebrates and plants were threatened with extinction, but it was not clear if this was representative of the small spineless creatures that make up the majority of life on the planet," said Professor Jonathan Baillie, ZSL's director of conservation.
"The initial findings in this report indicate that 20% of all species may be threatened.
"This is particularly concerning as we are dependent on these spineless creatures for our very survival," he said.
The majority of the world's estimated 126,000 freshwater species are invertebrates including molluscs and insects, such as dragonflies.
Of those included on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN's) Red List of Threatened Species, 35% are considered threatened and 131 species are listed as Extinct.
Spineless creatures that rule the world
IUCN 31 Aug 12;
One-fifth of the world’s invertebrates may be threatened with extinction according to ‘Spineless,’ a report published today by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), in conjunction with IUCN.
Digging up earthworms, chasing butterflies and collecting clam shells could become a thing of the past if enough isn’t done to protect invertebrates. And if they disappear, humans could soon follow. These critters form the basis of many of the essential benefits that nature provides: earthworms recycle waste nutrients, coral reefs support a myriad of life forms and bees help pollinate crops.
“The IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) is currently trying to expand the number of invertebrates species assessed for The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™,” says Dr Simon Stuart, SSC Chair. “The early results of this work are included in the Spineless book. I very much hope that the expansion of conservation-related information on invertebrates will give these species a much higher conservation profile in future.”
More than 12,000 invertebrates from The IUCN Red List were reviewed by conservation scientists—who also discovered freshwater species to be under the highest risk of extinction, followed closely by terrestrial and marine invertebrates. The findings from this initial group of global, regional and national assessments provide important insight into the overall status of invertebrates. Together they indicate that the threat status of invertebrates is likely very similar to that of vertebrates and plants.
Invertebrates are at risk from a variety of threats and what starts off as a local decline could lead to a global extinction. Recognizing the growing pressures on invertebrates is critical to informing more effective conservation. Molluscs, such as the Thick Shelled River Mussels (Unio crassus), suffer from pollution from agricultural sources and dam construction, which affects the quality of the water they live in. Crayfish such as the Noble Crayfish (Astacus astacus), are at risk from the impact of invasive species and diseases.
“Invertebrates constitute almost 80% of the world’s species, and a staggering one in five species could be at risk of extinction,” says Dr Ben Collen, Head of the Indicators and Assessments unit at ZSL. “While the cost of saving them will be expensive, the cost of ignorance to their plight appears to be even greater.”
The highest risk of extinction tends to be associated with species that are less mobile and are only found in small geographical areas. For example, vertebrate amphibians and invertebrate freshwater molluscs both face high levels of threat– around one-third of species are at risk. In contrast, invertebrate species which are more mobile, like dragonflies and butterflies, face a similar threat to that of birds, and around one-tenth of species are at risk.
“The ecology of vertebrates and the threats posed to them are reasonably well documented, and there is often more effort to conserve them—but the conservation attention paid to creepy crawlies lags far behind that of charismatic and well known animals like tigers, elephants and gorillas,” says Professor Jonathan Baillie, ZSL’s Director of Conservation. “We ignore the loss of invertebrates at our peril, as they provide many of the ecosystem services from which humans benefit.”
Invertebrates are the engineers of the many benefits which humans accumulate from an intact and fully functioning environment; however human demand for resources is continually increasing the pressure on invertebrate populations. This book paints a clear picture of how biodiversity is changing, and will enable experts to implement successful conservation plans for those invertebrates which are struggling to survive.
ZSL will be presenting ‘Spineless: Status and Trends of the World’s Invertebrates’ at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Jeju on 7 September.
