scholarly journals Searching for synthetic mechanisms on how biological traits mediate species responses to climate change

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fábio Júlio Alves Borges ◽  
Rafael Loyola
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Extinction Risk ◽  
Diet Breadth ◽  
Dispersal Ability ◽  
Tropical Species ◽  
Biological Traits ◽  
Species Vulnerability ◽  
Environment Temperature ◽  
Species Responses ◽  
Different Response

Abstract: Climate change will likely be the most significant challenge faced by species in this century, and species’ ability to cope with climate change depends on their life history and ecological and evolutionary traits. Understanding how these traits mediate species’ responses is beneficial for identifying more vulnerable species or prone to extinction risk. Here, we carried out a literature review describing how four traits commonly used in vulnerability assessments (i.e. clutch size, diet breadth, dispersal ability, and climatic tolerance) may determine species vulnerability. We also portray the possible mechanisms that explain how these traits govern species responses to climate change. The literature suggests different mechanisms operating for the evaluated traits. The mechanism of response to climate change differs between species inhabiting tropical and temperate regions: while species from the temperate areas may respond positively to temperature rise, tropical species may be severely affected. Since ectotherms depend on environment temperature, they are more sensitive and present different response mechanisms from endotherms.

Reflections on a seminal paper in conservation biology: the legacy of Peters and Darling (1985)

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 267
Author(s):  
Lesley Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Conservation Biology ◽  
Extinction Risk ◽  
Logical Framework ◽  
Natural Ecosystems ◽  
Seminal Paper ◽  
Species Vulnerability ◽  
Vulnerability To Climate Change ◽  
Species Translocation ◽  
Rapid Environmental Change

‘The Greenhouse Effect and Nature Reserves’ by Robert Peters and Joan Darling, published in the journal Bioscience more than 30 years ago, was a ground-breaking synthesis. Drawing on paleoecology, community ecology and biogeography, the review laid out many concepts about species vulnerability to climate change that have become central tenets of research on climate change adaptation in natural ecosystems. Remarkably, the paper also provided a clear and logical framework for flexible, forward-thinking and interventionist management action, including recommendations about the design of protected areas, and the need for species translocation to reduce extinction risk. Reflecting on the legacy of this paper, it is clear that the uptake of such approaches over the intervening decades has been extremely slow, representing many lost opportunities to reduce species vulnerability to rapid environmental change. This paper is a tribute to the prescience of Peters and Darling, and a call to revisit their farsighted advice to meet conservation challenges that continue to accelerate.

scholarly journals Expected time-invariant effects of biological traits on mammal species duration

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (42) ◽  
pp. 13015-13020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter D. Smits
Keyword(s):  
Anthropogenic Impacts ◽  
Extinction Risk ◽  
Ecological Factors ◽  
Biological Traits ◽  
Mass Extinctions ◽  
Mammal Species ◽  
Expected Time ◽  
Species Vulnerability ◽  
Extant Species ◽  
Time Invariant

Determining which biological traits influence differences in extinction risk is vital for understanding the differential diversification of life and for making predictions about species’ vulnerability to anthropogenic impacts. Here I present a hierarchical Bayesian survival model of North American Cenozoic mammal species durations in relation to species-level ecological factors, time of origination, and phylogenetic relationships. I find support for the survival of the unspecialized as a time-invariant generalization of trait-based extinction risk. Furthermore, I find that phylogenetic and temporal effects are both substantial factors associated with differences in species durations. Finally, I find that the estimated effects of these factors are partially incongruous with how these factors are correlated with extinction risk of the extant species. These findings parallel previous observations that background extinction is a poor predictor of mass extinction events and suggest that attention should be focused on mass extinctions to gain insight into modern species loss.

scholarly journals Species traits predict extinction risk across the Tree of Life

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Filipe Chichorro ◽  
Fernando Urbano ◽  
Dinarte Teixeira ◽  
Henry Väre ◽  
Tiago Pinto ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Extinction Risk ◽  
Species Traits ◽  
Diet Breadth ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Tree Of Life ◽  
Offspring Size ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Dispersal Ability ◽  
Human Footprint ◽  
Habitat Breadth

SummaryBiodiversity is eroding at unprecedented rates due to human activity1. Species’ trajectories towards extinction are shaped by multiple factors, including life-history traits2 as well as human pressures3. Previous studies linking these factors to extinction risk have been narrow in their taxonomic and geographic scope4, thus limiting the ability for identifying global predictors. We studied the relation between 12 traits and the extinction risk of almost 900 species representing 15 groups across the tree of life (vertebrates, invertebrates and plants) at a global scale. We show that threatened species share narrow habitat breadth, poor dispersal ability, low fecundity, small altitudinal range, and are affected by a large human footprint. Other traits either show contrasting responses among groups (body size, offspring size, and change in human footprint), or relations were found for only a limited number of taxa (generation length, diet breadth, microhabitat). Our study suggests that in the absence of data on the precise distribution and population trends of species, traits can be used as predictors of extinction risk and thus help guide future research, monitoring and conservation efforts.

scholarly journals Identifying robust strategies for assisted migration in a competitive stochastic metacommunity

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory A. Backus ◽  
Marissa L. Baskett
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Extinction Risk ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Dispersal Ability ◽  
Assisted Migration ◽  
Management Scenarios ◽  
Community Interactions ◽  
Competitive Model ◽  
Donor Population ◽  
Population Sizes

AbstractAssisted migration is the translocation of species beyond their historical range to locations that are expected to be more suitable under future climate change. However, a relocated population might fail to establish within its donor community if there is high uncertainty in decision making, climate, and interactions with the recipient ecological community. To quantify the benefit to persistence and risk of establishment failure of assisted migration under different management scenarios, we built a stochastic metacommunity model to simulate several species reproducing, dispersing, and competing on a temperature gradient as temperature increases over time. Without assisted migration, the species in our model were vulnerable to climate change if they had low population sizes, short dispersal, and strong poleword competition. When relocating species that exemplified these traits, assisted migration increased the long-term persistence of the species most when relocating a fraction of the donor population, even if the remaining population was very small or rapidly declining. This suggests that leaving behind a fraction of the population could be a robust approach, allowing managers to repeat assisted migration in case they move the species at the wrong place and wrong time, especially when it is difficult to identify a species’ optimal climate. We found that assisted migration was most beneficial to species with low dispersal ability and least beneficial to species with narrow thermal tolerances, for which assisted migration increased extinction risk on average. Lastly, while relocation did not affect the persistence of non-target species in our simple competitive model, researchers will need to consider a more complete set of community interactions to comprehensively understand invasion potential.

scholarly journals Biological traits and threats interact to drive extinctions in a simulation study

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Filipe Chichorro ◽  
Luís Correia ◽  
Pedro Cardoso
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Habitat Degradation ◽  
Extinction Risk ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Evolutionary Model ◽  
Dispersal Ability ◽  
Biological Traits ◽  
Habitat Loss And Fragmentation ◽  
Direct Killing

AbstractHow a particular threat influences extinction risk may depend on biological traits. Empirical studies relating threats and traits are needed, but data are scarce, making simulations useful. We implemented an eco-evolutionary model to analyse how five threat types influence the extinction risk of virtual organisms differing in body size, maturity age, fecundity, and dispersal ability. Results show that direct killing mostly affected slow-living and low dispersal organisms. Habitat loss and fragmentation both affected larger and less fecund organisms, but drove contrasting responses according to dispersal ability. Habitat degradation and the introduction of invasive competitors had similar effects, mostly affecting large, fast-living, and highly fecund organisms. Many of the reported results confirm previous studies, while others were never tested, creating new hypotheses for future empirical work.Statement of authorshipFC, LC and PC designed the study, FC implemented the model and ran the statistical analyses. FC and PC wrote the first draft, and all authors contributed substantially to further revisions.

Climate change and the latitudinal selectivity of ancient marine extinctions

Paleobiology ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl J. Reddin ◽  
Ádám T. Kocsis ◽  
Wolfgang Kiessling
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Mass Extinction ◽  
Extinction Risk ◽  
Tropical Species ◽  
Shelf Area ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Cold Temperatures ◽  
Extinction Rates ◽  
Continental Shelf Area ◽  
Permian Mass Extinction

AbstractGeologically rapid climate change is anticipated to increase extinction risk nonuniformly across the Earth's surface. Tropical species may be more vulnerable than temperate species to current climate warming because of high tropical climate velocities and reduced seawater oxygen levels. To test whether rapid warming indeed preferentially increased the extinction risk of tropical fossil taxa, we combine a robust statistical assessment of latitudinal extinction selectivity (LES) with the dominant views on climate change occurring at ancient extinction crises. Using a global data set of marine fossil occurrences, we assess extinction rates for tropical and temperate genera, applying log ratios to assess effect size and Akaike weights for model support. Among the classical “big five” mass extinction episodes, the end-Permian mass extinction exhibits temperate preference of extinctions, whereas the Late Devonian and end-Triassic selectively hit tropical genera. Simple links between the inferred direction of climate change and LES are idiosyncratic, both during crisis and background intervals. More complex models, including sampling patterns and changes in the latitudinal distribution of continental shelf area, show tropical LES to be generally associated with raised tropical heat and temperate LES with global cold temperatures. With implications for the future, our paper demonstrates the consistency of high tropical temperatures, habitat loss, and the capacity of both to interact in generating geographic patterns in extinctions.

Plant extinction risk under climate change: are forecast range shifts alone a good indicator of species vulnerability to global warming?

2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 1357-1371 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damien A. Fordham ◽  
H. Resit Akçakaya ◽  
Miguel B. Araújo ◽  
Jane Elith ◽  
David A. Keith ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Extinction Risk ◽  
Range Shifts ◽  
Species Vulnerability ◽  
Plant Extinction

scholarly journals Endemic Juniperus Montane Species Facing Extinction Risk under Climate Change in Southwest China: Integrative Approach for Conservation Assessment and Prioritization

Biology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Mohammed A. Dakhil ◽  
Marwa Waseem A. Halmy ◽  
Walaa A. Hassan ◽  
Ali El-Keblawy ◽  
Kaiwen Pan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Potential Distribution ◽  
Extinction Risk ◽  
In Situ Conservation ◽  
Integrative Approach ◽  
Conservation Assessment ◽  
Distribution Models ◽  
Area Of Occupancy ◽  
Annual Range ◽  
The Impact

Climate change is an important driver of biodiversity loss and extinction of endemic montane species. In China, three endemic Juniperus spp. (Juniperuspingii var. pingii, J.tibetica, and J.komarovii) are threatened and subjected to the risk of extinction. This study aimed to predict the potential distribution of these three Juniperus species under climate change and dispersal scenarios, to identify critical drivers explaining their potential distributions, to assess the extinction risk by estimating the loss percentage in their area of occupancy (AOO), and to identify priority areas for their conservation in China. We used ensemble modeling to evaluate the impact of climate change and project AOO. Our results revealed that the projected AOOs followed a similar trend in the three Juniperus species, which predicted an entire loss of their suitable habitats under both climate and dispersal scenarios. Temperature annual range and isothermality were the most critical key variables explaining the potential distribution of these three Juniperus species; they contribute by 16–56.1% and 20.4–38.3%, respectively. Accounting for the use of different thresholds provides a balanced approach for species distribution models’ applications in conservation assessment when the goal is to assess potential climatic suitability in new geographical areas. Therefore, south Sichuan and north Yunnan could be considered important priority conservation areas for in situ conservation and search for unknown populations of these three Juniperus species.

scholarly journals Synergistic impacts of global warming and thermohaline circulation collapse on amphibians

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julián A. Velasco ◽  
Francisco Estrada ◽  
Oscar Calderón-Bustamante ◽  
Didier Swingedouw ◽  
Carolina Ureta ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Thermohaline Circulation ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Extinction Risk ◽  
Meridional Overturning Circulation ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Amphibian Species ◽  
Climate Conditions

AbstractImpacts on ecosystems and biodiversity are a prominent area of research in climate change. However, little is known about the effects of abrupt climate change and climate catastrophes on them. The probability of occurrence of such events is largely unknown but the associated risks could be large enough to influence global climate policy. Amphibians are indicators of ecosystems’ health and particularly sensitive to novel climate conditions. Using state-of-the-art climate model simulations, we present a global assessment of the effects of unabated global warming and a collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) on the distribution of 2509 amphibian species across six biogeographical realms and extinction risk categories. Global warming impacts are severe and strongly enhanced by additional and substantial AMOC weakening, showing tipping point behavior for many amphibian species. Further declines in climatically suitable areas are projected across multiple clades, and biogeographical regions. Species loss in regional assemblages is extensive across regions, with Neotropical, Nearctic and Palearctic regions being most affected. Results underline the need to expand existing knowledge about the consequences of climate catastrophes on human and natural systems to properly assess the risks of unabated warming and the benefits of active mitigation strategies.

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