- As India's Bollywood shifts, stars and snappers click
- Mystery drones won't interfere with Santa's work: US tracker
- Djokovic eyes more Slam glory as Swiatek returns under doping cloud
- Australia's in-form Head confirmed fit for Boxing Day Test
- Brazilian midfielder Oscar returns to Sao Paulo
- 'Wemby' and 'Ant-Man' to make NBA Christmas debuts
- US agency focused on foreign disinformation shuts down
- On Christmas Eve, Pope Francis launches holy Jubilee year
- 'Like a dream': AFP photographer's return to Syria
- Chiefs seek top seed in holiday test for playoff-bound NFL teams
- Panamanians protest 'public enemy' Trump's canal threat
- Cyclone death toll in Mayotte rises to 39
- Ecuador vice president says Noboa seeking her 'banishment'
- Leicester boss Van Nistelrooy aware of 'bigger picture' as Liverpool await
- Syria authorities say armed groups have agreed to disband
- Maresca expects Man City to be in title hunt as he downplays Chelsea's chancs
- Man Utd boss Amorim vows to stay on course despite Rashford row
- South Africa opt for all-pace attack against Pakistan
- Guardiola adamant Man City slump not all about Haaland
- Global stocks mostly higher in thin pre-Christmas trade
- Bethlehem marks sombre Christmas under shadow of war
- NASA probe makes closest ever pass by the Sun
- 11 killed in blast at Turkey explosives plant
- Indonesia considers parole for ex-terror chiefs: official
- Global stocks mostly rise in thin pre-Christmas trade
- Postecoglou says Spurs 'need to reinforce' in transfer window
- Le Pen says days of new French govt numbered
- Global stocks mostly rise after US tech rally
- Villa boss Emery set for 'very difficult' clash with Newcastle
- Investors swoop in to save German flying taxi startup
- How Finnish youth learn to spot disinformation
- South Korean opposition postpones decision to impeach acting president
- 12 killed in blast at Turkey explosives plant
- Panama leaders past and present reject Trump's threat of Canal takeover
- Hong Kong police issue fresh bounties for activists overseas
- Saving the mysterious African manatee at Cameroon hotspot
- India consider second spinner for Boxing Day Test
- London wall illuminates Covid's enduring pain at Christmas
- Poyet appointed manager at South Korea's Jeonbuk
- South Korea's opposition vows to impeach acting president
- The tsunami detection buoys safeguarding lives in Thailand
- Teen Konstas to open for Australia in Boxing Day India Test
- Asian stocks mostly up after US tech rally
- US panel could not reach consensus on US-Japan steel deal: Nippon
- The real-life violence that inspired South Korea's 'Squid Game'
- Blogs to Bluesky: social media shifts responses after 2004 tsunami
- Tennis power couple de Minaur and Boulter get engaged
- Supermaxi yachts eye record in gruelling Sydney-Hobart race
- Hawaii's Kilauea volcano erupts, spewing columns of lava
- Battery X Metals Announces Closing of Non-Brokered Private Placement and Debt Settlement
Half of species not assessed for endangered list risk extinction: study
More than half of species whose endangered status cannot be assessed due to a lack of data are predicted to face the risk of extinction, according to a machine-learning analysis published Thursday.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) currently has nearly 150,000 entries on its Red List for threatened species, including some 41,000 species threatened with extinction.
These include 41 percent of amphibians, 38 percent of sharks and rays, 33 percent of reef building corals, 27 percent of mammals and 13 percent of birds.
But there are thousands of species that the IUCN has been unable to categorise as they are "data insufficient" and are not on the Red List even though they live in the same regions and face similar threats to those species that have so far been assessed.
Researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology used a machine learning technique to predict the likelihood of 7,699 data deficient species being at risk of extinction.
They trained the algorithm on a list of more than 26,000 species that the IUCN has been able to categorise, incorporating data on the regions where species live and other factors known to influence biodiversity to determine whether it predicted their extinction risk status.
"These could include climatic conditions, land use conditions or land use changes, pesticide use, threats from invasive species or really a range of different stressors," lead author Jan Borgelt, from the university's Industrial Ecology Programme, told AFP.
After comparing the algorithm's results with the IUCN's lists, the team then applied it to predict the data deficient species' extinction risk.
Writing in the journal Communications Biology, they found that 4,336 species -- or 56 percent of those sampled -- were likely threatened with extinction, including 85 percent of amphibians and 61 percent of mammals.
This compares to the 28 percent of species assessed by the IUCN Red List.
"We see that across most land areas and coastal areas around the world that the average extinction risk would be higher if we included data deficient species," said Borgelt.
A global United Nations biodiversity assessment in 2019 warned that as many as a million species were threatened with extinction due to a number of factors including habitat loss, invasive species and climate change.
Borgelt said the analysis revealed some hotspots for data-deficient species risk, including Madagascar and southern India. He said he hoped the study could help the IUCN develop its strategy for underreported species, adding that the team had reached out to the union.
"With these predictions from machine learning we can get really sort of pre-assessments or we could use those as predictions to prioritise which species have to be looked at by the IUCN," he said.
Head of the IUCN's Red List Craig Hilton-Taylor said the organisation was continuously harnessing new technology with a view to reduce the number of data deficient species.
"We also understand that a proportion of data deficient species are at risk of extinction, and include this in our calculations when we estimate the proportion of threatened species in a group," he told AFP.
A.Jones--AMWN