European Red List of Vascular Plants - European Commission

A total of 181 species (20.3%, compared to 17.4% in the
EU 27) are classed as Data Deficient and there are several
reasons for this listing. A species can be Data Deficient
if its taxonomic concept is being debated which is the
case for 19 of the 181 species. But in most cases a Data
Deficient category is triggered by insufficient information
for the species which might be due to no recent field work
or no monitoring data being available. However, in this
project, some national country endemics needed to be
assessed as Data Deficient as no reliable contact could
be established with country experts. This problem mainly
concerned plants endemic to Romania and to European
Turkey. Although national red lists classed the species
as threatened, the necessary supporting information
could not be obtained and a full assessment could not be
carried out. The lack of information from some countries
also affected more widespread species that showed a
decline everywhere and were marked as threatened in
several countries. As most plant species were assessed
using a criterion based on restricted range and declining
populations, range data missing from one country could
already make an assessment Data Deficient as it was not
clear whether the thresholds for a threatened category
would be met. Another criterion used for widespread
but declining species is based on a certain percentage
of population decline over a certain time span. This
percentage of population decline would be needed from
each of the countries of occurrence in order to make
an informed decision about a European-wide rate of
decline. This was impossible in most cases as this type of
monitoring data is only available for a few sites but hardly
even for a population at country level. Examples for
those species being Data Deficient are Gladiolus palustris,
Pulsatilla patens, Tozzia carpathica or Typha shuttleworthii.
However, the information available for Data Deficient
species is presented in the assessment text and there is the
hope that after publishing the incomplete results, experts
will develop new research projects and come forward with
the needed information to fully assess the threat status of
these Data Deficient species.
It might also surprise that 24.6% (or 23.7% in the EU
27) of the species are considered to be of Least Concern
having in mind that the group of policy species have
been pre-identified as being of conservation concern.
The IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria are
designed to assess the risk of extinction and a species
that is slowly declining throughout its range but still
occurs in numerous countries is sometimes not likely to
go completely extinct in all of Europe. It needs to be
stressed that although they are listed as Least Concern,
they need conservation attention and should be at least
monitored. A considerable part of the populations
should be included in protected areas. There are also
cases where the protection under the Habitats Directive
or CITES already benefited species in a way that there
are no threats anymore and the populations are stable.
They would be assessed as Least Concern but that is by
no ways an argument to loosen the current protection.
A good case to demonstrate that fact is Cypripedium
calceolus – this attractive orchid is listed under the
Habitats Directive, Bern Convention and CITES and
has strong populations in Europe. It is classed as Near
Threatened for the moment as it is thought that the current
protection and the fact that its collection is prohibited
are responsible for its favourable status and that as soon
as this protection would cease, the populations could
decline massively. There are furthermore a few cases
where due to taxonomic changes a restricted range taxon
now belongs to a more widespread species that is not
under threat, e.g. Murbeckiella pinnatifida ssp. herminii
is now included in Murbeckiella boryi.
Finally, it should be noted that the percentages of
threatened policy plant species mentioned earlier
represent minimum estimates. A more realistic value may
be calculated based only on the surviving species which
have been assessed for their extinction risk (i.e. omitting
DD, EX and RE from the total). In this scenario 56.6%
of policy plants are threatened in Europe and 57.5% are
threatened in the EU 27. Considering that the policy
plant species were pre-identified as being of conservation
concern, it is likely that a very high percentage of the
DD species is also threatened, which would bring the
overall percentage of threatened species even higher.
3.3 Spatial distribution of species
3.3.1 Species richness
The following table and figures do not represent actual
species richness but reflect how active member states were
in including their species in the annexes of the policy
instruments and how much data were available for these
plants.
Within this group the Iberian Peninsula holds most of the
species with 318 occurring in Spain and 211 in Portugal.
It is followed by Italy, Greece, and France. Although,
the figures do not per se represent species richness, it
coincides with the fact that the Mediterranean countries,
in particular the Iberian Peninsula, Italy and Greece are
the countries with the highest species richness in Europe
and the EU 27.
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