Red List of China’s Vertebrates

Abstract

To assess the overall threat status of wild vertebrates in China, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, allied with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, initiated a program compiling a China Biodiversity Red List —Vertebrates in 2013. Through this program, we compiled a Red List of China’s Vertebrates using three documents as reference: (1) IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria (Version 3.1) (IUCN, 2012a); (2) Guidelines for Using the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria (Version 8.1) (IUCN Standards and Petitions Subcommittee, 2010); and (3) Guidelines for Application of IUCN Red List Criteria at Regional and National Levels (Version 4.0) (IUCN, 2012b). We applied the following IUCN categories, i.e. Extinct (EX), Extinct in the Wild (EW), Regionally Extinct (RE), Critically Endangered (CR), Endangered (EN), Vulnerable (VU), Near Threatened (NT), Least Concern (LC), and Data Deficient (DD), to describe the status of vertebrates in China. The information for assessing Red List of China’s Vertebrates was mainly collected from specimens, literature and experts. Specimen data were collected from museums located at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other universities as well as local natural history museums. Based on the specimen data collected, we analyzed the data using GIS to gain information about the extent of occurrence and area of occupancy of each vertebrate species evaluated, which provided fundamental data for the assessment. In addition to specimen data, literature review provided the main information for this assessment, in reference to new species, species distribution, ecology, conservation, and resource utilization. Furthermore, expert consultation was another important assessment method. Experts