Almost 18% of the freshwater biodiversity endemic to the Tropical Andes region of Bolivia, Perú, Ecuador and Colombia is threatened with extinction on The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™, according to a recent assessment by the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and partners. The analysis of 967 species included freshwater fishes, freshwater mollusks, dragonflies and damselflies and a select group of aquatic plants.
The main threats are agricultural activities, pollution, dams and water management, mining, and unsustainable use of biological resources, such as fisheries and logging. The basins with higher concentrations of threatened species are the Magdalena-Cauca and Dagua in Colombia, followed by the Ucayali, Madre de Dios and Marañón in Perú, Napo, Pastaza and Cayapas in Ecuador, and Beni and Mamoré in Bolivia.
Current protected areas do not include many freshwater systems and the project also included the identification of freshwater Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA). Eighty six freshwater KBA were identified, of which 25 were newly delimited. This information will help guide the selection of new protected areas or expansion of existing reserves to include critical freshwater biodiversity.
The study also included an assessment of the vulnerability of the species to climate change, based on their biological traits. This is the first time that the IUCN climate change vulnerability methods have been applied purely in a freshwater context. Using the most conservative climate change models and scenarios, the results show that approximately 12% of the species assessed would be vulnerable to climate change. In some groups, such as the fishes, greater numbers of climate change vulnerable species are found in lower altitude areas, which was contrary to expectations. This new information highlights the need for monitoring those species that would be more susceptible to changing climatic conditions.
Click on the map below to learn more on threatened freshwater biodiversity in the Tropical Andes:
The project was funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, with contributions from Conservation International.
