Three Rare Plants Join the IUCN Red List as Botanists Sound the Alarm on Desert and Alpine Endemics

A newly published series of IUCN Red List assessments in the Italian Botanist has placed three little-known vascular plants under formal conservation scrutiny for the first time, and the results reveal two species already sliding toward extinction. The assessments, prepared by teams working in Italy and Uzbekistan, evaluate Campanula bergomensis, Iris hippolyti, and Stipa aktauensis at the global level using the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s categories and criteria. Two of the three species have been classified as Endangered, while the third, a recently described bellflower from the Italian Prealps, enters the list as Near Threatened.

The most striking result concerns Iris hippolyti, a bulbous ephemeroid endemic to two remnant low mountains, Kokchatau and Karatau, rising from the eastern Kyzylkum Desert of Uzbekistan. These isolated gray-brown desert hills cover a combined extent of roughly 2.5 square kilometers, with a maximum elevation of just 447 meters. Until 2018, the species was known from a single population at Kokchatau, where counts dropped from an estimated 300 individuals in 2015 to 138 by 2020. A second subpopulation discovered in 2022 in the Karatau Mountains holds fewer than 40 individuals, bringing the entire global population to approximately 175 mature plants.

Using the IUCN’s quantitative thresholds, the assessors applied Criterion A, documenting an observed decline of 54 percent in the number of individuals over the last ten years. Criterion B added further weight: both the extent of occurrence and the area of occupancy measure only 8 square kilometers, calculated with the GeoCAT geospatial tool on a 2-kilometer grid, with just two locations threatened by nomadic grazing and recreational land use. Combined with Criterion D, which captures the perilously small and declining population, the species qualifies as Endangered under B1b(iii,v)+2b(iii,v)+D.

The threats to Iris hippolyti are intensely local and distinctly human. Satellite imagery analyzed by the team showed that mine workers from the settlement of Zafarabad destroyed more than 2,000 square meters of the species’ habitat for recreational activities. Livestock farming, the primary income source for Kyzylkum residents, degrades what habitat remains through persistent grazing. Climate adds a subtler danger: because the iris begins its vegetative growth in late February or early March, severe frost events that strike the region roughly once every five to six years kill significant numbers of juveniles. The species is already listed as Category 1, Critically Endangered, in the National Red Book of Uzbekistan, and has been introduced into cultivation at the Tashkent Botanical Garden as a hedge against total loss.

The second Uzbek endemic, Stipa aktauensis, presents a different conservation geometry. This tussock-forming perennial grass of the Poaceae family is scattered across seven remnant mountain ranges of the Kyzylkum Desert, including Kuldzhuktau, Auminzatau, Bukantau, Tamditau, Muruntau, Aktau, and Sultan-Uizdag, at altitudes between 400 and 700 meters. Recent fieldwork documented more than 2,000 individuals in total, with the largest concentrations in Kuldzhuktau, Tamditau, and Aktau, and the smallest, about 80 plants, at Sultan-Uizdag. Despite this broader footprint, the species’ area of occupancy is a mere 44 square kilometers, while its extent of occurrence spans 32,725 square kilometers.

That combination of wide range and tiny occupied area, coupled with five locations threatened by grazing and an observed continuing decline across all measured parameters, places Stipa aktauensis in the Endangered category under Criterion B2ab(i,ii,iii,iv,v). The assessors highlight an accelerating industrial dimension to the threat: geological exploration for gold and marble is particularly active at Kuldzhuktau, wind power station construction is destroying habitat there and at Tamditau, and intensive gravel production with stone-crushing equipment has been linked to the smallest population size at Sultan-Uizdag. The species has appeared in Uzbekistan’s National Red Book since 1975, yet attempts to cultivate it at a desert research station failed, and its seeds are held in no germplasm bank anywhere in the world.

The sole European species in the batch, Campanula bergomensis, tells a story of discovery rather than decline, at least so far. Described as new to science only in 2024, the perennial bellflower is restricted to the eastern Bergamo Prealps in Lombardy, Italy, where most populations cluster on wide, flat dolomitic debris cones in the Borlezza hydrogeographic basin near the village of Clusone. These gently sloping debris fans are an unusual geomorphological feature in the Lombardy Prealps, and the plant occupies them at elevations from 450 to 1,250 meters, flowering from mid-July to mid-August on the margins of sparse mountain pine scrub.

The assessors calculated an extent of occurrence of 100 square kilometers and an area of occupancy of 64 square kilometers using the sRedList platform, finding no continuous decline observed or estimated. Nevertheless, the precautionary approach embedded in the IUCN guidelines led them to assign Near Threatened. The reasoning is forward-looking: motocross and mountain bike traffic already tramples some populations, stabilized debris cones are gradually colonized by shrubs and trees that displace the open-habitat specialist, and the cones sit beneath unstable dolomitic cliffs where landslides could wipe out nearby colonies. Increasing droughts and extreme weather events associated with climate change loom as future pressures. Preliminary germination experiments at the Città Studi Botanical Garden in Milan suggest low germination rates, compounding concerns about the species’ ability to recover from disturbance.

The conservation infrastructure surrounding these three species varies dramatically. Campanula bergomensis currently enjoys no legal protection at any level, although several populations fall within Natura 2000 Special Areas of Conservation, including the Val Nossana site and the Val Sedornia and Pizzo della Presolana complex. The assessors call for its inclusion in the protection lists of the Lombardy Region and for urgent research into its reproductive biology and ecology. For the two Uzbek species, the recommendations converge on reinforcing in-situ protection, establishing seed banks, and using bioclimatic modeling to identify viable future habitat as the Kyzylkum climate warms.

Collectively, the assessments illustrate a recurring pattern in global plant conservation: narrow endemics confined to geologically peculiar or geographically isolated habitats face disproportionate risk from the combined pressures of land use, industry, and a changing climate. The Kyzylkum remnant mountains, in particular, emerge as a hotspot where desert specialists that survived centuries of aridity are now being undone within decades by grazing, mining, and recreational development. Whether these species persist will depend on translating their new Red List statuses into concrete protective action, from regional legislation in Lombardy to ex-situ collections and habitat enforcement in Uzbekistan, before the next assessment cycle documents further losses.

Subject of Research: Global IUCN Red List conservation assessments of three endemic vascular plant species in Italy and Uzbekistan

Article Title: Global and Regional IUCN Red List Assessments: 17

Article References: Fenu, G., Cambria, S., Giacò, A., Khabibullaev, B. S., Shomurodov, K. F., Peruzzi, L., Porrovecchio, M., Tavilla, G., & Orsenigo, S. (2023). Global and Regional IUCN Red List Assessments: 16. Italian Botanist, 16, 121-133. https://doi.org/10.3897/italianbotanist.16.115947

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/italianbotanist.16.115947

Keywords: IUCN Red List, Campanula bergomensis, Iris hippolyti, Stipa aktauensis, Kyzylkum Desert, plant conservation, endemic species, Uzbekistan, Lombardy, biodiversity, Endangered species, habitat loss