Conservation categories and rarity types of Siberian Saussurea species

Abstract

The criteria for assessing conservation categories of rare species are not identical in drafting the red lists of Russia and the IUCN. By the example of genus Saussurea (Compositae), we have shown that the conservation measures for some endangered species do not match their state. We conducted indicator analyses on two factors of more than 9000 relevés with Saussurea species with large ranges and determined their rarity types according to D. Rabinowitz. Only 2 Siberian Saussurea species are not characterised by any type of rarity. The other 54 taxa all feature a small range, low abundance or high habitat specificity.