Over 1,000 mammal species are red-listed by IUCN, as Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable. Conservation of many threatened mammal species, even inside protected areas, depends on costly active day-to-day defence against poaching, bushmeat hunting, invasive species and habitat encroachment. Many parks agencies worldwide now rely heavily on tourism for routine operational funding: >50%...

China is exceptionally rich in biodiversity, with more than 30000 vascular plant species that include many endemic genera, species of ancient origin, and cultivated plants (Yang et al. 2005). Because of rapid economic development, population growth, pollution, and continuing resource exploitation, China’s plant diversity faces severe threats. According to the Chinese National Report on Biodiver...

Canine distemper virus (CDV) has been implicated in population declines of wildlife, including many threatened species. Here we present the full genome of CDV from an Ethiopian wolf, Canis simensis, the world's rarest and most endangered canid.

Australia is rich in orchid flora with over 1000 native species currently recorded. A significant proportion of Australia’s terrestrial orchids are critically endangered, endangered or threatened. Threats to many orchid species include habitat destruction, degradation and fragmentation from increased urbanisation, overgrazing, altered fire regimes and unfortunately, excessive collecting by orch...

A new study that has identified the remaining habitat of threatened species finds nearly three times as many are on the brink of extinction than have died out in the past 500 years. The new global analysis of the most threatened habitats was carried out by an international alliance of conservation scientists who spent three years locating the last remaining sites where species labelled endanger...

Polylepis forests are one of the most threatened high Andean ecosystems, with 15 species and eight subspecies being categorized as critically endangered, vulnerable or near by IUCN. Howe...

The US Endangered Species Act is legislation with the power to limit human activities that may have deleterious effects on the viability of threatened and endangered species of fauna and flora. However, because most endangered species face multiple threats, it is often unclear whether limiting specific activities will improve the likelihood of long-term survival, particularly when the relative ...

Terrestrial orchids represent a wide diversity of species that are characterised by an equally diverse range of life history attributes. Threatened and endangered species of terrestrial orchids have been identif ed on all continents where they occur and conservation plans have been developed for some species. Even though there is a considerable amount of information on the ecology of terrestria...

Protected areas are critical for the conservation of many threatened species. Despite this, many protected areas are acutely underfunded, which reduces their effectiveness significantly. Tourism is one mechanism to promote and fund conservation in protected areas, but there are few studies analyzing its tangible conservation outcomes for threatened species. This study uses the 415 IUCN critical...

The paper highlights the fish diversity in major wetlands of Mysore district, Karnataka, India and its conservation status. Forty-five species of fishes belonging to 15 families, 31 genera have been identified. Fish species belonging to genus Puntius were more common in many of these lakes. However it was observed that the fish diversity was decreasing since last two years unprecedently mainly ...