- Proposed
- Under Assessment
- Preliminary Assessed
- Assessed
- VUPublished
Leptonia carnea Largent
Search for another species...
- Scientific name
- Leptonia carnea
- Author
- Largent
- Common names
- IUCN Specialist Group
Mushroom, Bracket and Puffball- Kingdom
- Fungi
- Phylum
- Basidiomycota
- Class
- Agaricomycetes
- Order
- Agaricales
- Family
- Entolomataceae
- Assessment status
- Published
- Assessment date
- 2015-06-10
- IUCN Red List Category
- VU
- IUCN Red List Criteria
- C2a(i)
- Assessors
- Vellinga, E.
- Reviewers
- Dahlberg, A.
Assessment Notes
The content on this page is fetched from The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/76256454/97168155
Justification
This beautiful species is restricted to the Coast Redwood forests of California, USA, which have come under severe drought stress because of changing summer fog patterns, and reduced winter rains. The Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) is endemic to coastal areas of California and utmost southern Oregon, and has been, is and will continue to be subject to logging, resulting in patchiness and fragmentation of suitable habitat. Leptonia carnea is assessed as Vulnerable (VU) under criterion C2a(i), because of less than 2,500 mature individuals and continuing decline in habitat extent.Geographic range
Endemic to the United States occurring in northern coastal California from Humboldt County in the north into Monterey County, with one observation from Washington State that has to be confirmed (Largent 1977, 1994).Population and Trends
Known from a small number of localities in the counties of Humboldt, Mendocino, Sonoma, Marin, Santa Cruz and Monterey. In total probably less than 50 localities are known.
Restricted to Sequoia sempervirens forests. These forests have been extensively logged during the last century, and continue to be logged, resulting in severe habitat loss. Today, only five percent of the original old-growth Coast Redwood forest remains, along a 450-mile coastal strip in California (http://www.savetheredwoods.org/redwoods/coast-redwoods/).
Population Trend: decreasing
Habitat and Ecology
A terrestrial fungus with unknown nutritional status growing in Sequoia sempervirens forests. There is one record from a Cupressus macrocarpa stand, and one observation outside the occurrence of Sequoia sempervirens in Washington State (but this still has to be confirmed). Often found in slightly disturbed sites.Threats
Habitat changes and habitat destruction as a result of two major impacts: logging of coastal redwood forests that has been going on for a century (Noss 2000), and the changes in the remnants of these forests due to decreased summer fog (Johnstone and Dawson 2010) and irregular winter rains, which are the cause of increased drought stress on the trees.Conservation Actions
The following actions are needed:- Protection of the existing Sequoia sempervirens forests from logging
- Curbing of carbon emissions.
