Zhejiang Tiantong Forest Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station, Research Center for Global Change and Ecological Forecasting, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China.
Section for Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity, Department of Biology, Aarhus University, Aarhus C, Denmark.
Glob Chang Biol. 2021 May;27(9):1904-1914. doi: 10.1111/gcb.15525. Epub 2021 Feb 13.
Climate and land cover changes are increasing threats to biodiversity globally. However, potentially varying biotic sensitivity is a major source of uncertainty for translating environmental changes to extinction risks. To reduce this uncertainty, we assessed how extinction risks will be affected by future human-driven environmental changes, focusing on 554 species from 52 disjunct plant genera between eastern Asia (EAS) and eastern North America (ENA) to control for differences in environmental sensitivity at the genus level. Species distribution models were used to estimate and compare the vulnerability of species in disjunct genera between the two regions under two climate and land cover change scenarios (RCP2.6 and RCP8.5) in the 2070s, allowing to assess the effects of differences in climate and land cover pressures. Compared with ENA, stronger pressures from climate and land cover changes along with smaller range sizes in EAS translate into a larger number and proportion of species in disjunct genera becoming threatened by the 2070s. These regional differences are more pronounced under a best-case climate scenario (RCP2.6), illustrating that strong climate change (RCP8.5) may override any regional buffer capacities. The main variables determining extinction risks differed between the two continental regions, with annual temperature range and cropland expansion being important in EAS, and annual precipitation being important in ENA. These results suggest that disparities in regional exposure to anthropogenic environmental changes may cause congeneric species with relatively similar sensitivity to have different future risks of extinction. Moreover, the findings highlight the context-specific nature of anthropogenic effects on biodiversity and the importance of making region-specific policies for conservation and restoration in response to the intensifying global changes.
气候和土地覆盖变化正在增加全球生物多样性面临的威胁。然而，生物的潜在敏感性差异是将环境变化转化为灭绝风险的主要不确定因素。为了降低这种不确定性，我们评估了未来人为驱动的环境变化将如何影响灭绝风险，重点关注东亚（EAS）和北美东部（ENA）之间的 52 个不连续植物属中的 554 个物种，以控制属水平上环境敏感性的差异。物种分布模型用于估计和比较两个地区不连续属中物种在两个气候和土地覆盖变化情景（RCP2.6 和 RCP8.5）下的脆弱性，以评估气候和土地覆盖压力差异的影响。与 ENA 相比，EAS 中气候和土地覆盖变化的压力更大，且分布范围更小，这导致不连续属中的更多物种在 2070 年代受到威胁。在最佳气候情景（RCP2.6）下，这些区域差异更为明显，表明强烈的气候变化（RCP8.5）可能会超过任何区域缓冲能力。决定灭绝风险的主要变量在两个大陆地区之间存在差异，年温度范围和耕地扩张在 EAS 中很重要，而年降水量在 ENA 中很重要。这些结果表明，由于人为环境变化的区域暴露差异，对人类活动具有相对相似敏感性的同属物种可能具有不同的未来灭绝风险。此外，这些发现强调了人为影响对生物多样性的具体情境性质，以及针对不断加剧的全球变化制定具体区域政策以进行保护和恢复的重要性。
