Genetic diversity and IUCN Red List status.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List is an important and widely used tool for conservation assessment. It uses information about a species' range, population size, habitat quality and fragmentation levels, and trends in abundance to assess extinction risk. The Red List does not consider genetic diversity, although it is an additional factor affecting extinction risk. Declining populations experience stronger effects of genetic drift and higher rates of inbreeding, which can reduce the efficiency of selection, lead to fitness declines, and hinder species' capacities to adapt to environmental change. Given the importance of conserving genetic diversity, several studies have attempted to find relationships between Red List status and genetic diversity. Yet, there is still no consensus on whether genetic diversity is captured by the current Red List categories in a way that is informative for conservation. Here, we synthesize previous work and reanalyze three datasets using different marker types (mitochondrial DNA, microsatellites, whole genomes) across vertebrates to assess the predictive power of genetic diversity - Red List status correlations. Consistent with previous work, we found that on average, species with higher extinction risk status tended to have lower genetic diversity for all marker types, but these relationships were weak and varied across taxa. Regardless of marker type, genetic diversity did not accurately identify threatened species for any taxonomic group. Our analyses indicate that Red List status is not a useful metric for informing species-specific decisions about the protection of genetic diversity, nor can genetic data identify threat status in the absence of demographic data. Our findings clearly indicate a need to develop and assess metrics specifically designed to assess genetic diversity into conservation policy, including those recently adopted by the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.