Extinct Belly-Flower (Gasteranthus extinctus)

Mohamed bin Zayed Species project number 232531505

Saving species and rewriting the story of extinction in Centinela.

This grant funded four months of salary ($12,000 total) for two professional Ecuadorian botanists to conduct surveys and inventories of surviving forest fragments in the Centinela region, including herbarium specimen collection.  

Located in the southern Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas Province, Centinela has no formal protected areas, and its original forests persist only in small, isolated fragments along streams and steep, inaccessible slopes. Our surveys identified 19 forest fragments larger than 10 hectares surviving in the region and documented 52 IUCN-threatened plant species, including 7 critically endangered and 28 endangered species, including the presumed-extinct Gasteranthus extinctus (pictured). This underscored the urgent need for conservation. 

In total, we documented . The study expanded known species ranges, confirmed the survival of presumed-extinct species like Gasteranthus extinctus, and identified several new species, emphasizing the region’s biodiversity value.  

Our findings, published in Nature Plants and Phytotaxa, challenge the historical "Centinelan Extinction" hypothesis and highlight the necessity of immediate conservation action. We also produced a report of our findings and activities that detailed botanical and ecological  assessments for each fragment, including floristic composition, structural and functional diversity, threats, conservation status, and potential for connectivity and restoration. The report also describes the reproductive biology and flowering and fruiting periods for all 35 endangered or critically endangered plant species, which is instrumental information for ongoing restoration work.

This grant helped us leverage a grant awarded to Fundacion Jocotoco for $237,000 USD to continue surveys, purchase land to establish a Centinela Reserve, and begin seed collection and reforestation initiatives - including for endangered species - in partnership with the Jardin Botanico Padre Julio Marrero in Santo Domingo.

The support of MBZ was critical in initiating these botany and conservation efforts, laying the foundation for our ongoing, large-scale, interdisciplinary project focused on the long-term conservation and restoration of Centinela.  

Project documents

• Nature Plants article summarizing botanical findings resulting from MBZ funded inventories.
• Scientific report documenting results of inventories, endangered species action plans, and ecological assessments of surviving forest fragments in Centinela.




Project 232531505 location - Ecuador, South America