Flag species: What are and examples

Within the world of ecology, those commonly known as flag species are those charismatic species that serve as a symbol to attract government support and/or society to achieve the implementation and promotion of species conservation programs.

These conservation programs manage to include both the selected species as a flag, as well as those other less striking and/or representative species of the habitats with which they live together and keep some type of biological association.

We can affirm that the function that flag species within the world of biodiversity conservation is of great value. Let’s see in the next sections what characteristics and features they define them, as well as the criteria that must be considered to be considered as flagship species by organizations and specialists of ecology.

For a species to be considered a flag and, therefore, defined as a priority and strategy for biodiversity conservation, it must meet a series of requirements:

• Have a High level of threat.
• Have a fundamental ecological value for the correct functioning of the habitat to which it belongs.
• Have previous biological knowledge by the scientific community.
• Have long generational time.
• Characterized by a large body size that facilitates your knowledge.
• Guarantee the Survival of other species with which he shares his natural habitat.
• Be sensitive to environmental and/or population disturbances.
• Need Concrete habitat requirements.

Once a species has all these attributes, it can be considered by ecologists as a proposal of a flag species, which, however, must not comply with a distribution area or large populations, or with a particular trophic level.

Now that we have discovered what characteristics and attributes the flag species must meet, we know with specific examples many of the most important flag species on the planet.

Many biodiversity protection campaigns in America include great felines as main flag speciesbeing used as symbols to promote the development of conservation programs for biological corridors, such as the famous Mesoamerican Biological Corridor (CBM). In the following list we show more flag species that we have probably seen in campaigns for species conservation. Did you know them all?

• Giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)
• Wolf (Canis lupus)
• Puma (Puma concolor)
• Bengal tiger (Panthera Tigris Tigris)
• Mottled owl (Tyto Multipunctata)
• Mountain tapir (Tapirus click)
• Green turtle (Chelonia Mydas)
• Polar bear (Ursus maritimus)
• ORANGÁN (Genre Padgo)

The terms flag species and umbrella species have been coined by the scientific community, within the world of ecology, to expedite the study and conservation of multiple species.

During the last decades, coinciding with the impacts of climate change and the anthropic alteration of ecosystems, each time More species are suffering from extinguishing If they do not have large social awareness campaigns for their conservation and survival. It is in this context that ecologists began using the terms of flag species and umbrella within the broader concept of Specage specieswhich encompass functions such as pointing out environmental or population changes, until attracting public attention for the development of species conservation programs.

In this way, the use and recognition of species such as flag and umbrella in the world of ecology can be complementary, since, although umbrella species represent others, but the flag does not, the use of both in protection and conservation campaigns is much more enriching.

In the following article we talk more in detail about umbrella species: what are and examples.

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