A comparison of North American avian conservation priority ranking systems

The need to prioritize species based on their perceived endangerment has led to the development of systems for categorizing and assessing their degree of vulnerability. Systems with divergent biological and geographical scopes can result in conflicting lists of high-priority species, potentially confusing conservationists and hampering the efficient allocation of resources. To assess conservation priorities for North American birds, we compare three priority-setting systems; those of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), NatureServe, and Partners in Flight (PIF). We found highest correspondence among the three systems in the highest and lowest categories of the respective systems with lower levels of correspondence in intermediate categories. We suggest that this is because the systems, while using different formulations of criteria, are based on the major factors known to be correlated with extinction risk. The few examples of species listed as a high conservation priority by one group but not one or both of the others appear to be the result of differences in availability or interpretation of data. Better communication and collaboration among those responsible for compiling the priority lists for each system is needed. A primary difference among the systems was the total number of species identified as conservation priorities. IUCN identified the fewest species (47) and PIF the most (157). This difference is the result of differences in geographic and taxonomic scope of each system. However, when considered as the percent of the total number of taxa evaluated by each system, all systems identified approximately 20% of species as of conservation concern. To reconcile disparate lists, we urge that conservationists use a hierarchical approach that first considers species that meet thresholds for endangerment under global systems, followed by species considered most vulnerable relative to all continental biota. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.