I may have been a bit snarky about the new Red List for mammals earlier in the week, but I have to admit the new paper in Science covering the major findings is rather impressive (maybe it’s just that fresh Science smell that has me convinced, or maybe I should just stop reading press releases). Lots of good stuff here:

Phylogenetic diversity is … is arguably a more relevant currency of diversity and less affected by variations in taxonomic classification than species richness. Species richness and phylogenetic diversity are very closely related for land species (r² = 0.98), but less so in the marine environment (r² = 0.73).

The size of land species’ ranges varies from a few hundred square meters (Bramble Cay Melomys, Melomys rubicola; Australia), to 64.7 million km² (Red Fox, Vulpes vulpes; Eurasia and North America). For marine species, ranges vary from 16,500 km² (Vaquita, Phocoena sinus; Gulf of California), to 350 million km² (Killer Whale, Orcinus orca; all oceans). [Good trivia question, that Red Fox bit! --ed.]

For land species, there is a strong association between landmass width and median range size: The largest ranges tend to be found across the widest part of each continent, particularly in northern Eurasia, whereas islands (e.g., in Southeast Asia and the Caribbean) and narrow continental areas (e.g., southern North and South America) tend to have narrowly distributed species. Superimposed on this general pattern, ranges also tend to be small in topographically complex areas (e.g., the Rockies, Andes, and Himalayas). These results agree with those for birds, which suggest that range sizes are constrained by the availability of land area within the climatic zones to which species are adapted.

Very, very, neat stuff.

Okay, what the hell, I’ll take issue with this:

One hundred and fifty-five species were deleted from the original tree: 138 corresponding to taxa no longer recognized as separate species (lumped to another species already on the tree); four for which no match was found; 12 that are Extinct or Extinct in the Wild; and Homo sapiens.

Really? No humans? Why not? I would love to read the IUCN Red List assessment of Homo sapiens:

The Red Fox Man has the widest geographical range of any member of the order Carnivora Primata, being distributed across the entire northern hemisphere from the Arctic Circle to North Africa, Central America, and the Asiatic steppes, and pretty much anywhere else that’s not underwater… okay, and a couple of places that are. Red Foxes Humans are adaptable and opportunistic omnivores and are capable of successfully occupying urban areas (unless your name is Joe SixPack and you are a True American, in which case you are willing to check out urban areas to see a show and go to the Met, aka the “It’s a nice place to visit, but I would never want to live there” theory of range limitation). In many habitats, foxes humans appear to be closely associated with man, even thriving in intensive agricultural areas. The species currently is — barring a serious turnaround in the polls — not under threat.

Schipper, Jan + over 100 others. The Status of the World’s Land and Marine Mammals: Diversity, Threat, and Knowledge. Science, 322:5899. (doi: 10.1126/science.1165115)