Status - explanations

NOTE: Some parts are still under construction. Comments welcome.

• Terrestrial - living on, over or under land
  • Arboreal - associated with trees
  • Cavernicolous - living in caves
  • Fossorial - living in soil, or in tunnels under the surface
  • Petrophilous - associated with rocky substrates, typically mountains
  • Psammophilous - living in or on sandy substrates, typically sand dunes
  • Oceanic Islands
  • Aquatic Littoral - living on or near the shoreline (interface with Aquatic macrohabitat)
  • Marine Littoral - (interface with Marine macrohabitat)
• Aquatic - living in freshwater. Organisms are here considered to be aquatic even if they live in water for only a minor part of their life cycle. Loosely based on Ramsar Convention categories as interpreted in Namibia Biodiversity Country Study.
  • Riverine systems/ Lotic communities - living in running water. In Namibia this is mainly the large border rivers.
  • Lacustrine systems / Lentic communities - living in open standing water
    • Permanent lacustrine systems - lakes and backwaters associated with permanent rivers, artificial impoundments
      One specialised permanent lacustrine system is:
      • Hypogean systems / stygobiotic communities - living in groundwater or cave lakes
    • Ephemeral lacustrine systems - pans, oshanas, omiramba, short-lived pools remaining after floods in ephemeral rivers, rock pools in granite
  • Palustrine systems - well-vegetated standing water
    • Permanent palustrine systems - swamps and marshes associated with permanent rivers, groundwater springs
      Two specialised types of permanent palustrine systems are:
      • Hypersaline springs - very low pH, salt crusts
      • Geothermal springs - hot water
    • Ephemeral palustrine systems - vleis, mulapos, turf pans
  • Aquatic Estuarine - associated with river mouths (interface with Marine macrohabitat)
  • Aquatic Littoral - living on or near the shoreline, or on floodplains (interface with Terrestrial macrohabitat)
• Marine - living in or on the ocean, or around its edges
  • Abyssal - living in the very deepest parts of the ocean, beyond the continental shelf
  • Demersal - living on, in or near the bottom of the ocean, from the low tide level to the edge of the continental shelf
  • Pelagic - living in or on the open ocean, away from the shore, usually near the surface
  • Intertidal - living near the shore, between the high and low tide levels
  • Marine Estuarine - associated with river mouths (interface with Aquatic macrohabitat)
  • Marine Littoral - living on ocean beaches, above the high tide level (interface with Terrestrial and macrohabitat)

• Land:
• Water (aquatic and marine):
  • Benthic - living on or in the bottom sediments of water
  • Nektonic - swimming in water, moving about on their own
  • Neustonic - associated with the water surface
  • Periphytic - associated with water plants
  • Planktonic - floating in water, moved about by currents
• Plant life forms:
  • Chamaeophytic
  • Epiphytic - no roots in soil
  • Geophytic
  • Hemi-cryptophytic
  • Phanerophytic - 5 subgroups: trees, shrubs, stem succulents, herbaceosu stems & vines
  • Therophytic

• Free-living - 'normal' species
• Social/colony
• Parasitic
• Symbiotic, Mutualism

• Producer - a plant or micro-organism that produces its own energy by chemical processes, using sunlight and inorganic substances (autotroph).
• Consumer - an animal or micro-organism that gets its energy by eating other organisms (phagotroph).
  • Primary consumer - an animal that eats producers (herbivore).
    Specialised food sources:
    • Wood
    • Flowers/nectar - pollinators
    • Roots
    • Fruit
    • Seed
    • specific species
  • Secondary consumer - an animal that eats other consumers (carnivore).
    (Some animals, called omnivores, may opportunistically switch between herbivore and carnivore depending on what food is available - in classifying them here we characterise their usual feeding pattern and ignore the odd exception)
    Specialised food sources:
    • Parasite - a specialised carnivore that does not, or not at first, kill the consumer it feeds on
    • Exto, endo, hyper, specific species
• Decomposer - an organism that gets its energy by breaking down the dead remains of other organisms into the inorganic substances that can again be used by producers (saprotroph).

• Global distribution:
  • Cosmopolitan - found all over the world
  • Old World - found mainly in Africa, Europe and Asia
  • Afrotropical - found mainly in subsaharan Africa
    • South East African - found throughout southern Africa, and up the eastern half of the continent into East Afica
    • South Central African - found mainly in the southern parts of subequatorial Africa (Angola, Zambia, Caprivi)
    • Southern African - found mainly in South Africa and neighbouring countries
    • South West African - found mainly in the arid western parts of southern Africa (Namibia, Botswana, northern Cape, southwestern Angola), also called the 'African South West Arid Region'
• Namibian distribution:
  • North Eastern - species associated with wetter forms of savanna, found mainly in South Central or East Africa, extending into northeastern Namibia
  • Northern - species associated with drier forms of savanna, found mainly in Southern or Southeastern Africa, ranging into the northern half of Namibia
  • Southern - species associated with the semi-desert Nama Karoo Biome, found mainly in the western interior of South Africa, ranging into the southern half of Namibia
  • South Western - species associated with winter rainfall and the semi-desert Succulent Karoo Biome, often at the northern limit of a range that extends into Namaqualand and the Southwestern Cape, but just as often endemic or near-endemic.
  • North Western - generally montane species, found mainly in the Kunene Region, may extend into southwestern Angola. Often endemic or near-endemic.
  • Namib Desert - species found mainly in the subcoastal desert of western Namibia, may range into northwestern Cape and southwestern Angola. Almost always endemic or near-endemic.
  • Montane relicts - species restricted to high mountain peaks, endemic or else disjunctly distributed on other Southern African mountains.
  • Fossil / Extinct - given our often incomplete knowledge of fossil species, as well as the environmental changes that have taken place since they lived, it is usually not possible to deduce their probable distribution ranges at the time
• Endemism:
  • Endemic - species that are found only in Namibia, and nowhere else in the world
  • Near-endemic - species of which more than 75% of their total world range falls within the borders of Namibia
  • Pseudo-endemic - a term that has been created here. When a species is known only from a single sample which happens to come from Namibia, when it belongs to a badly known or undersampled group, and especially if the place where it was found is near the Namibian border and in an area not known for high rates of endemism, its 'endemicity' is likely artificial and temporary (till better sampling shows it to be more widespread), hence, 'pseudo-endemic'. On the other hand, if the situation persists over time following more sampling and better knowledge, the endemism is probably real.
  • Widespread - species that also occur outside the borders of Namibia

• Indigenous - species that occur (or occurred) naturally in Namibia within historical times. Indigenous species may or may not have some conservation or other status.
  Conservation status. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) defines the meanings of the following categories, as well as the criteria for assigning a species to a particular category. The currently valid criteria are version 3.1 (2001). Though evaluations done under the earlier version 2.3 (1994) criteria are now considered to be out of date, they are the only available evaluations for some species. NaBiD always lists the newest available evaluations.
  While IUCN concerns itself with global conservation status, it recognises that this may vary on a regional scale, and therefore they also allow for the existence of regional evaluations in parallel with global evaluations, using the exact same criteria, but applied to a delimited area only. Where available, NaBiD lists regional status as well. For Namibian endemic species, regional and global status should, of course, be the same.
  More details on the global level evaluations for individual species may be found here. The utilised sources for regional (Namibian) evaluations are:
  [**add references].(The non-IUCN 'Rare' category from this source - species with limited distribution but not known to face any threats - was listed as 'Least Concern' here).
  Categories are:
  • Not Evaluated (NE) - species that have not (yet) been evaluated according to IUCN criteria. Includes most Namibian species.
  • Not applicable (NA) - used only at the regional level, for species that are not suitable for evaluation, e.g. introduced or vagrant species. Since NaBiD only lists IUCN status for indigenous species, this category will seldom be seen here. [**although we might make all aliens not applicable by default, which would allow global listing - could be interesting ...]
  • Data-deficient (DD) - species for which evaluation was attempted, but for which the conservation status could not be determined due to insufficient information.
  • Least Concern (LC) (2001) or Lower Risk, Least Concern (LR/lc) (1994) - essentially unthreatened species with viable populations and no significant threats to their survival.
  • Near-Threatened (NT) (2001) or Lower Risk, Near-Threatened (LR/nt) (1994) - species which may become threatened (i.e. Vulnerable, Endangered, or Critically Endangered) in the near future if current trends in population size and distribution range continue.
  • Lower Risk, Conservation Dependent (LR/cd) (1994) - species that are the target of conservation programmes, the cessation of which would result in the species qualifying for threatened status. The category is not used any more. [**if anything ends up here, we lump it under NT]
  • Threatened - a collective term for species that evaluate to any of the next three categories as listed below: Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically Endangered. Threatened evaluations are followed by a code giving detailed information as to the exact criteria used to arrive at the threatened designation. Refer to the criteria links given above for an explanation of these codes.
  • Vulnerable (VU) - species that are facing a high risk of extinction in the wild, based on current trends in population size and geographical range (10% probability of extinction within 100 years).
  • Endangered (EN) - species that are facing a very high risk of extinction in the wild, based on current trends in population size and geographical range (20% probability of extinction within 20 years).
  • Critically Endangered (CR) - species in imminent danger of extinction in the wild, based on current trends in population size and geographical range (50% probability of extinction within 10 years).
  • Extinct in the Wild (EW) - species that are extinct in their natural habitat, and survive only in captivity or under cultivation. The category is used at the global level only.
  • Regionally extinct (RE) - species that are extinct in the region, but survive elsewhere on earth. The category is used at the regional level only.
  • Extinct (EX) - species that have completely disappeared from the face of the earth. The category is used at the global level only. [NaBiD uses this category primarily in a non-IUCN context, for fossil taxa.]
  • Re-introduced - species that have become extinct in Namibia during historical times, but have since been re-introduced from populations that survived elsewhere (this is not a IUCN category, but has been added here for convenience; it only makes sense at the regional level)
  • Genetic contamination concerns - species that occur naturally in Namibia, have not become extinct here, but have had indigenous populations augmented by introduced non-indigenous stock (usually for commercial interests). Such cases have already, or could still, result in the genetic contamination of indigenous populations (not a IUCN category either, and also applicable at the regional level only).
  • Indeterminate, Insufficiently known, Peripheral, Rare, Secure - these categories may be found in evaluations of Namibian species. They are not, or no longer, valid IUCN categories. NaBiD has attempted to map them to valid categories, following definitions of the terms in the sources concerned.
• Non-indigenous - species that did not previously occur in Namibia, but now do
  • Anthropophilic - species that are associated with humans, and that usually cannot survive indefinitely in the Namibian environment without human intervention. Included are:
    • Our livestock, crops, pets and garden plants.
      • Feral - Domestic animals that have escaped from captivity and manage to survive in the wild.
    • Common household organisms that utilise the habitat we provide for them.
    • All the pests, parasites and pathogens associated with our domestic animals and cultivated crops.
    • Our own parasites.
  • Biocontrol agents - generally beneficial species that were intentionally introduced into Namibia to help with the biological control of alien invasive species (see below). They surive without human intervention.
  • Naturalised - species that are not strictly associated with humans, but do occur here after people introduced them into the country either intentionally or accidentally. They are able to survive here without human intervention. Their ecological effects are either unknown, or not significant at current population levels.
  • Alien invasive - problematic introduced species that threaten the environment in some way, either directly by killing or indirectly by outcompeting and replacing indigenous species (transforming the environment).

• CITES - The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. As the name implies it regulates international trade in certain species, or parts or derivatives of such species, according to their listing in CITES Appendices. While high CITES listing is also paralled by high conservation listing for most species, this is not always the case: the Cactaceae spp. listed in CITES Appendices I and II are invasive aliens in Namibia and definitely have no conservation value here. It is also worth noting that the same species may have different CITES listings in different countries. NaBiD includes only listings valid for Namibia, as per Appendices dated 13 September 2007, accessed here on 25 January 2008. Country-specific CITES information may also be found in the UNEP-WCMC Species Database of CITES-Listed Species, but a search for 'Namibia' there turns up occasional species that are non-Namibian, or that have undergone name changes. The former are ignored in NaBiD, while the latter will be found as synonyms under their currently valid names.
  • Appendix I includes species threatened with global extinction, and trade in these is subject to particularly strict regulations. It is only authorized under exceptional circumstances.
  • Appendix II includes species that are not necessarily now threatened with extinction, but may become so unless trade in them is strictly regulated to avoid utilization incompatible with their survival. It also includes any other species for which trade needs to regulated in order to effectively control trade in strict Appendix II species.
  • Appendix III includes species where trade regulation to prevent exploitation is mainly needed on the individual country or regional level. Namibia has no CITES Appendix III species of its own; those listed here have formal Appendix III status in neigbouring countries, but also occur in Namibia.
• Namibian Nature Conservation legislation - The Nature Conservation Ordinance Nr. 4 of 1975, as most recently amended by the Nature Conservation General Amendment Act Nr. 31 of 1990, affords legal status to certain scheduled animals and plants.
  • Schedule 3: Specially Protected Game
  • Schedule 4: Protected Game
  • Schedule 5: Huntable Game
  • Schedule 6: Huntable Game Birds
  • Schedule 9: Protected Plants
• Still need to check: Controlled Game Products Proclamation AG 42 of 1980; Marine Resources Act, no. 27 of 2000 (and Regulations relating to exploitation of Marine Resources, no. 241 of 2001); Nature Conservation Amendment Act 1986.

• Diurnal - active during the day
• Nocturnal - active during the night
• Crepuscular - active at dawn and/or dusk only