Inferring the extinction risk of marine fish to inform global conservation priorities.

ABSTRACT: While extinction risk categorization is fundamental for building robust conservation planning for marine fishes, empirical data on occurrence and vulnerability to disturbances are still lacking for most marine teleost fish species, preventing the assessment of their International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) status. In this article, we predicted the IUCN status of marine fishes based on two machine learning algorithms, trained with available species occurrences, biological traits, taxonomy, and human uses. We found that extinction risk for marine fish species is higher than initially estimated by the IUCN, increasing from 2.5% to 12.7%. Species predicted as Threatened were mainly characterized by a small geographic range, a relatively large body size, and a low growth rate.

SUBMITTER: Loiseau N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11361419 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature