'Unsung species' ignored on endangered list

The global extinction crisis ignores thousands of affiliate species that are also at risk of being wiped out, making the list of endangered species much larger and more serious than originally thought, says a study produced in part at the University of Alberta.

"What we found is that you aren't just necessarily wiping out just one single species," said Dr. Heather Proctor of the U of A's Department of Biological Sciences. "We're also allowing all these unsung species to be wiped out as well."

Proctor and a research team led by Lian Pin Koh of the National University of Singapore and Robert Dunn from the University of Tennessee, calculated the expected levels of co-extinction across a diverse selection of host and associate systems. Their research is published in the current edition of the journal, Science.

The team first compiled a list of 12,200 plants and animals currently listed as threatened or endangered. They then looked at the diverse selection of insects, fungi and other organisms that are uniquely adapted to the threatened host. The researchers found that at least 200 affiliate species already have historically been lost through co-extinction and that a further 6,300 should be classified as 'co-endangered'....

Thanks to Science Blog for the link.