IUCN SSC Freshwater Specialist Group

2018 Report

Neil Cumberlidge Keith Crandall

Co-Chairs Mission statement at least in part of its range. We will have imple- Neil Cumberlidge (1) The mission of the IUCN SSC Freshwater Crusta- mented additional conservation strategies Keith Crandall (2) cean Specialist Group (FCSG) is to work towards for Critically Endangered of highest all aspects of the long-term conservation of priority, and our focus will be on developing Red List Authority Coordinators freshwater decapods (freshwater , cray- conservation action plans for the two rediscov- ered threatened species of freshwater crabs Darren Yeo (3) , freshwater shrimps, and aeglids) world- in Cameroon. We will also have expanded our Keith Crandall (2) wide. Specific goals are: (1) to act as the Red List scope to include all of the world’s land crabs Sammy De Grave (4) Authority and to update IUCN Red List species assessments; (2) to promote their long-term and mangrove crabs. Location/Affiliation conservation worldwide by management of Targets for the 2017-2020 quadrennium (1) Northern Michigan University, habitats and by the development of conser- Marquette, Michigan, US vation strategies and, where necessary, the Assess (2) George Washington University, recovery of populations; (3) to promote inte- Red List: begin the assessment of 1,500 species Washington DC, US grated research on biodiversity and conser- of primary freshwater crabs, plus about 90 (3) Department of Biological Sciences, vation; (4) to educate non-specialists about species of newly described crayfish, and 86 National University of Singapore, Singapore all aspects of the group; and (5) to create and species of aeglids. Also targeted are 27 species (4) Oxford University Museum of Natural maintain the FCSG website of the IUCN SSC that of land crabs, and more than 100 species of History, Oxford, UK will provide up-to-date world species lists, keep mangrove crabs. track of the discovery of new species, and list Plan the Red List status for each species. Number of members Planning: develop conservation action plans for 26 two threatened species recently re-discovered Projected impact for the 2017-2020 in Cameroon. quadrennium Act By the end of 2020, we envisage that we will Conservation actions: (1) follow up on the prog- have made progress towards a second global ress of the project initiated in 2015 to save a reassessment of the freshwater crabs, including Critically Endangered species of freshwater up to 300 newly described species assessed for from Singapore (Johora singaporensis) from the first time. This will guide the prioritisation of extinction; (2) begin implementation of conser- species for future conservation actions for Crit- vation action plans for two threatened species ically Endangered species of freshwater crabs. recently re-discovered in Cameroon. We will also have added the entire global fauna of the (South American anomuran Network freshwater crabs) to the IUCN Red List. Again, Capacity building: (1) organise two Red List this will guide the prioritisation of species for training workshops; (2) organise one conserva- future conservation actions, especially for Crit- tion planning training workshop. ically Endangered species. We are on track for Membership: increase membership from China, the stabilisation of the populations of the Criti- Taiwan, Singapore, Costa Rica, US, Colombia cally Endangered species Johora singaporensis and Australia. in Singapore and the reduction of threats and specific management of habitat for this species, Afrithelphusa monodosa (EN), a threatened species of from Guinea Photo: Neil Cumberlidge

Communicate Network Communication: develop a website for the Capacity building FCSG. i. No Red List training workshops were held during 2018; however, two Malagasy scien- Activities and results 2018 tists who had not previously had any Red List Assess training were involved in the Red List workshop in , where we evaluated the extinc- Red List tion risk of all of the freshwater decapods on i. We have completed assessments for 278 that island. (KSR #5) species of pseudothelphusid freshwater crabs Membership (every species in the Neotropical region), more than 200 species of freshwater crabs from i. Three new members were recruited from Rediscovered ‘lost species’ of threatened China, 42 species of freshwater decapods from Costa Rica, the US, and Cameroon. Two more freshwater crab Louisea balssi (EN) are planned (from Colombia and Australia). from Cameroon Madagascar, 12 species from , Photo: Pierre A. Mvogo Ngondo and 10 species from Lake Malawi. We have also completed draft assessments of 86 species of Acknowledgements aeglids from . All of these assess- We thank the following donors that helped us to ments are awaiting submission to the Red List cover the costs of the workshops for developing Unit; however, we have abandoned ideas to the conservation action plan for the Critically assess the more than 100 species of mangrove Endangered Singapore Freshwater Crab (Johora crabs because this is not realistic. (KSR #1) singaporensis): National Parks Board, Singapore, Plan Wildlife Reserves Singapore, and the National Planning University of Singapore. Moreover, we want to thank the following IUCN Red List experts that i. We are continuing field work to study two assisted with the development of the conserva- threatened species recently re-discovered in tion action plan: Sonja Luz, Roopali Raghavan, Cameroon, and are ready to implement conser- Geoffrey Davison, Cai Yixiong, Daniel J.J. Ng, and vation actions, but this will need support for a Philip J.K. McGowan. meeting of all of the stakeholders. (KSR #15) Act Summary of activities 2018 Conservation actions Species Conservation Cycle ratio: 4/5 i. We established a captive breeding Assess 1 | programme for a Critically Endangered species of freshwater crab from Singapore at the Singa- Plan 1 | pore Zoo, and worked with the National Park Act 1 | Service to preserve the habitat at the type Network 2 || locality. Genetic studies of this species began at Main KSRs addressed: 1, 5, 15, 27 the National University of Singapore. (KSR #27) KSR: Key Species Result