Narcissus yepesii

Changes in land use for agricultural purposes and the abandonment of traditional management, leading to the transformation of grasslands into scrublands is the main threat to this species in the near future. Particularly, grazing by livestock, mainly from local races of sheep ‘Segureña’ and goat ‘Blanca Andaluza’ and ‘Negra Serrana’ as well as summer burning on lagoon borders, produce a serious decline of the population of this species. These impacts lead to clogging of the ecosystem by megaforbic, helophytic communities such as Phragmites australis and a decreased ability of the species to compete in theses circumstances. Since this species is highly linked to wet and temporary inundated environments, increased drought and desertification associated to potential groundwater abstraction could negatively affect its survival in the short-medium term.

The two natural hybrid subpopulations between this species and the closely related N. segurensis display vigorous shape, and are estimated to have an overall population size higher than 5,000 individuals. This fact would be a problem in the future for maintaining the original genotypes of both N. yepesii and N. segurensis, leading to extinction by dilution of the current taxa in hybrid populations.

The uncontrolled harvesting for commercial purposes known in the past of other taxa belonging to the Subgenus Ajax is a possible risk to bear in mind for this rare plant. The increasing interests in the galanthamine-related alkaloid content of the Amaryllidaceae species for pharmaceutical purposes (Berkov et al. 2014) could represent a threat in the near future, since there is no possibility of industrial synthesis of these bioactive substances and plants remain as an important source (Berkov et al. 2011).

All known populations are present within the protected areas, including Parque Natural de Los Calares del Mundo y de la Sima, and Natural Park Sierras de Cazorla, Segura and the Villas (IUCN and UNEP-WCMC 2017). It is listed as threatened at the national level in Spain under the category Vulnerable, VU (Moreno et al. 2008). It is currently not listed at the regional level of the region of Andalucía (Blanca et al. 2002). 

The species is cultivated ex situ at the Torretes Botanical Garden of the Research Institute CIBIO-University of Alicante, and long-term seed conservation is carried out in the genebanks of Torretes and Castilla-La Mancha botanical gardens. Other ongoing conservation strategies include the establishment of in vitro collections at the University of Alicante. High rates of rooting and satisfactory acclimatization were also achieved (Juan-Vicedo et al. 2015). This plant material can be used in plant reintroduction programs.

Water resource management in order to regulate over abstraction is the the most important conservation measure needed for this species at present. More research is also required to clarify its taxonomic status and avoid misidentifications which may have a negative impact in the species´ conservation. Additional population and habitat monitoring, habitat protection and control of livestock grazing and bulb collection are also recommended.