Effective ex situ conservation of plants in botanic gardens requires sufficient wild accessions to represent wild diversity. In Rhododendron L. (Ericaceae), c. 64% of the taxa are threatened or require field investigation. As a case study of the analysis of ex situ conservation gaps we used ecogeographical representation as a proxy for genetic representation in ex situ collections of the 65 taxa of Rhododendron subsection Maddenia. We compiled the first list profiling both wild distributions and ex situ wild collections of all taxa in subsection Maddenia. Our results reveal that 55 Maddenia taxa are in cultivation. Of the 18 threatened taxa all are in cultivation but nine require further collection to capture adequate wild diversity. There are 12 Data Deficient taxa: these await further field investigation of wild populations and nine of them require wild collections to conserve genetic diversity. The UK, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and China are the top five countries holding ex situ collections of subsection Maddenia; in these countries nearly 66% of the ex situ sites hold > 86% of the global living collections of subsection Maddenia. We recommend that wild collections of endemic species of subsection Maddenia should be established in all 10 countries of origin and that data should be shared internationally for metacollections. In addition to proposing priorities, our case study highlights the challenges facing data and collection management to help achieve effective ex situ conservation for Rhododendron species.

The illegal online trade in wildlife has increased significantly over the last 2 decades. Applying a systematic survey approach, we examined the online trade in elephant ivory before and after the implementation of a domestic trade ban in Singapore, to understand the forms of elephant ivory offered for sale, the e-commerce sites used and the effect of the domestic trade ban. Using elephant ivory and lookalikes in form, shape and colour as proxies for elephant ivory, we found that most of the online listings consisted of bird cages and related accessories such as bird feeding cups and ornaments used to adorn them. After the domestic trade ban in elephant ivory was implemented on 1 September 2021, a 76% drop in total listings was observed. Causal impact analysis indicated a strong causal effect of the domestic trade ban, resulting in an 83% drop in the mean number of new listings found weekly relative to the predicted counterfactual market response based on a Bayesian structural time-series model in the absence of the ban. E-commerce sites play an important role in combatting illegal wildlife trade online by removing flagged listings and sending notifications to raise awareness of the ban. We found textual descriptions of products to be more effective for preliminary differentiation of legal and potentially illegal listings compared to the detection of Schreger lines in images, although this remains a significant challenge for law enforcement. Our findings can inform future efforts to develop automated detection methods for elephant ivory in online markets.

In the summer of 1966 Dr Kaszab, Director of the Zoological Department of the Hungarian Natural History Museum in Budapest, was invited by the Mongolian and Hungarian Academies of Science to lead an expedition, his fourth, to western Mongolia, in the course of which the members had the good fortune to sight eight Przewalski wild horses.

So much of Borneo is still uninhabited by man—it must be the leaśt densely populated part of tropical Asia—that it is difficult to imagine its wild fauna being endangered. Much the larger part of the island is still jungle, visited only (if at all) by nomadic groups. But a few species, conspicuous and attractive to humanity for size, food, medicine or beauty, are to-day in danger in all the four territories (Indonesian Borneo, and the British western section comprising North Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei).

Extant representatives of the ancient crustacean family Anaspididae are restricted to the island State of Tasmania, Australia. Allanaspides hickmani and Allanaspides helonomus were first described in the early 1970s from surface pools in buttongrass moorland in two adjacent watersheds in south-west Tasmania. Both of these catchments have since been inundated for hydroelectric power generation (Lake Gordon and Serpentine Impoundments). Surveys indicate that both species persist in a small number of highly fragmented populations on the margins of the two impoundments. A. hickmani and A. helonomus have extant Areas of Occupancy of c. 21 and 54 km2, respectively. We estimate that inundation resulted in the loss of 85–94% of the original range of A. hickmani and c. 78% of the original range of A. helonomus. Under IUCN Red List guidelines and National threatened species legislation A. hickmani but not A. helonomus may qualify for listing as Vulnerable (Area of Occupancy <20 km2). At the present time only A. hickmani is listed as Rare under Tasmanian (State) threatened species legislation but A. helonomus merits the same listing under State legislation. Global warming appears to pose the most significant potential threat to Allanaspides species.