A New Red List of Endemic Vascular Plants of Iran Identifies a High Proportion of Threatened Species and Major Conservation Gaps.

Classifying the threat status of species using IUCN Red List categories is a crucial step in identifying endangered species and planning for their conservation. Iran, covering major parts of a global biodiversity hotspot in Southwest Asia, is climatically and topographically a heterogeneous country with a rich flora and a high concentration of endemics. Here, IUCN Red List criteria were applied to 2753 endemic Iranian vascular plants to assess their threat status. Moreover, threat hotspots of these categories and their conservation gaps were identified. Of all endemic species occurring in Iran, 2143 species (77.8%) are threatened; among those, 889 (32.3%) are critically endangered (CR), 875 (31.8%) are endangered (EN), and 379 (13.8%) are vulnerable (VU). Furthermore, 534 species (19.4%) were classified as least concern (LC) or near threatened (NT), and 76 species (2.8%) were classified as data deficient (DD). Based on the hotspots of threatened species, Threat Conservation Gaps, that is, hotspots of threatened species insufficiently covered by protected areas, were identified and found amounting to 58 percent. Hotspots of threatened species are restricted to the same five major mountain ranges of the Iranian Plateau identified as areas of endemism in previous studies. Our results provide an important basis for identifying areas of high conservation priorities, legislative decisions, and developing intervention strategies at the national level.